


close your eyes and i'll kiss you

by soran_rising



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Friends With Benefits, Friends with Feelings, emily has no game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 02:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21190061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soran_rising/pseuds/soran_rising
Summary: Emily pulls back from Kelley, pressing her thumbs into her hips and angling herself to look up at her.“Hi.” Kelley says, smugly. “Any reason we stopped?”And Emily watches her with reverence, unsure how to express what’s beating inside her heart. She wants to ask why they’re doing this. What Kelley wants. What she’s planning.“Kell—what is this?”Kelley looks at her, hesitating, and for the first time in a long time Emily sees a frown grace her features. But in a flash it’s gone and Kelley brightens, leaning in so they’re nose to nose.“Kissing, Sonnett.” She kisses her again, and Emily honestly doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to the feeling, “Just uncomplicated kissing.”/////(AKA the friends with benefits AU)





	1. close your eyes and i'll kiss you

**Author's Note:**

> hi y'all
> 
> i know this is not the fic i'm supposed to be updating i'll get to that  
(next chapter's written it's just not good enough yet)
> 
> this fic has everything that the other does not--emily pov, sex--if that is not your jam here is your warning. it takes place at some camp probably a year or so back.
> 
> chapter title taken from the beatles song "all my loving".
> 
> i'd also like to take this moment to say that kelley and her gf are so cute and i mean zero disrespect posting this, though i do feel guilty as all heck about it. she's happy y'all, and this is fiction. not trying to hurt anybody!

In retrospect, it might’ve all been Emily’s fault.

(And really, aren’t things always Emily’s fault?)

But before we get into that… let the record show that Kelley O’Hara was being a total asshole earlier that day, and Emily feels what she did was super goddamn warranted.

See, they were at camp running a 6v6 drill that somehow left Emily defending against Kelley, who as most people know, is a total fucking madwoman. She’d been pushing up against Emily, trying to knock her over; hip-checking her, shoulder-checking her, deliberately grabbing her shirt and pulling her to the ground (“_Ref!!_ Yellow card!!!” “Get up, you big _baby_.”), and at some point Emily couldn’t handle it anymore. She decided to fight fire with fire, forcing herself to embrace the physicality of it all and really get _up close and personal. _Pushing up into Kelley’s space, she’d cut her off a few times, digging her elbow in. At some point Kelley had caught on and pushed back harder.

And they really shouldn’t be doing this, Emily eventually finds herself thinking, because Kelley’s ankles are tender and this whole thing is stupid. It’s fucking _practice_. But Kelley’s ridiculousness knows no bounds, and Emily can’t help but match it. It's always been their way. Kelley turns to put her entire body between Emily and the ball and Emily finds herself moving closer to Kelley, shoving her hips into her ass, essentially. Pushing her forward. She feels Kelley almost lose her balance and watches with pride as Kelley kicks the ball to the wrong team in a panic.

When Kelley turns to give her some choice words, Emily answers with a smirk and a shrug and a “Get it together, O’Hara.”

And then, near the end of the game, Emily’s about to send the ball up to Allie when Kelley abruptly pummels her in the side, sending them both flying. Kelley ends up half on top of Emily, and once she can see that Emily’s not truly hurt, her face drops into a satisfied smirk.

(And _damn_, that smirk though.)

(What? Emily’s got eyes. Most of the time she has the common sense to know Kelley’s way out of her league… but sometimes she forgets.)

Kelley pushes up off of Emily and pulls her up with a hand, giving her a small wink and then smacking her butt before masterfully stripping Crystal of the ball and hopping back into the game like she never left. Emily stares for a little bit, dazed and confused, before quickly rejoining the game in time to direct the ball to Christen and help her score.

And as they’re celebrating, Emily watches Kelley reset. She throws Emily a quick smile when she sees her watching, and Emily immediately looks away, embarrassed. Try as she might, there are times where Emily just can’t help but be baffled by the sheer existence of Kelley Fucking O’Hara. The beauty, the brains, and the fucking relentlessness... even when she was mad at Kelley, Kelley was impossible not to watch. 

After the 6v6 game from hell, Emily’s ready to go wind down and bother Rose. She has a whole plan for how she’s going to specifically bother Rose today, and she’s excited to put it into action—this particular iteration involves a few choice drawings and an entire song verse she’d put an embarrassing amount of time into. But as she’s closing her locker and turning around, Kelley O’Hara blocks her way.

“Going somewhere?”

And Emily sighs, exasperated. Does this woman ever get tired? Whatever Kelley wants Emily's ready to just give in—anything to not have to fight her again. But then Kelley’s got this smirk on her face and against her better judgment Emily feels herself find something of a second wind:_ alright Kelley, bring it. _

“Apparently not.”

And somehow Kelley takes that as invitation to fully step into Emily’s space, which throws Emily somewhat off guard. She can’t back up without hitting the locker and the thought of being fully between Kelley and the locker isn’t one she wants to entertain, so she holds her ground.

“Can I help you?”

And Kelley just stares. She stares for an unnerving amount of time, and then softens: “You did good today, Scout.”

Emily rolls her eyes. “Thank you Miss Kelley.”

And then Kelley shoves her up against the locker, holding her there, “But you have to be unafraid to get a little physical, my dude.” And Emily rolls her eyes again. What is this, a cheesy high school movie?

She notes their proximity and laughs before she's even made the joke: "This is a very poor excuse to pin me up against a locker." 

Kelley's smirking like she doesn't know what's coming and Emily delights in getting to point out the innuendo, "“If you wanted to make out with me, all you have to do is ask.”

Emily leans in, angling her mouth toward Kelley's in an attempt to sell the joke. There's a split second where Emily can see Kelley's gaze flick down to her lips, something changing in her expression... but she must just be imagining it because Kelley pulls back just as quickly, expression souring. 

“Don’t make it gross, Son,” she says, annoyed, “that’s like incest.”

And Emily makes kissing noises. Loud, obnoxious kissing noises. She runs her own hands up and down her sides, pushing up her own shirt and shutting her eyes in mock pleasure.

“_Mmm_, Kell. Oh yeah, right there. That’s it.”

And most of the locker room turns to laugh, watching as Kelley just rolls her eyes and smiles open-mouthed at Emily, speechless. For once, Emily has the upper hand.

Rose walks by, insisting that the two of them “get a room”. Lindsey actually has the audacity to shove Emily closer to Kelley, which forces Kelley back into a locker with Emily pressed up against her. Oh how the tables have turned. 

She dances up on Kelley, who just stands there, arms crossed, smiling and shaking her head. “You done?”

“Not quite.” Emily leans in close, pressing a kiss to Kelley’s cheek that turns into a loud, obnoxious fart sound. And Kelley takes it all in good fun, laughing.

“Oh my god, Kell, stop flirting with the children and get a hobby.” Alex says, only half paying attention.

“I wasn’t—she…” Kelley starts, gently pushing Emily off. She starts her way back to her locker, but not without throwing Emily another look. Emily blows her a kiss, and Kelley flips her off in return.

Emily watches Kelley leave with Alex and remembers having one distinct thought: _well, that’s the end of that_.

Spoiler alert: it was not. 

\- + - + - + -

Later that night, Emily receives a text from Kelley and thinks almost nothing of it.

**miss kelley:** Get your ass up here. I need to beat you up

She chances a glance at Alyssa, who’s nearly asleep, and slips on her shoes, typing a quick response:

**Emily Sonnett:** oof yes i do like it rough

**Emily Sonnett:** be there in a sec

Their friends have spent the better part of the day making fun of them in the group chat, and Emily’s grateful she started this because at least the joke doesn’t feel like it’s on her, necessarily. She can see why Kelley might joke about killing her, though, and wouldn’t put it past Kelley to like, murder her by tickling her to death, or something.

(If she’s being honest, she’ll probably take this second to apologize—this whole joke has been blown way out of proportion. They’d changed her name to Sonny O’Hara in the group chat, for God’s sake.)

She rushes up the stairs, passing a distressed Mal seated on the floor in the hall. She remembers something about Mal and her boyfriend not doing well, but can’t fully recall the specifics (unsurprisingly, Emily is never the choice friend to talk about relationships with, as she’s never in one). From the looks of the call Mal was on, things didn’t seem to be improving. Emily shoots her a small salute as she passes, making a pained face in sympathy.

She slips down to room 508, gently knocking on the door. It opens to Kelley, dressed in only a large Under Armor t-shirt and a pair of running shorts. Her hair is up in a soft bun and Emily suddenly wishes she’d done a once over of her own appearance before rushing up here.

“Hello and welcome to your murder,” Kelley says, waving her in, “I brought snacks.”

“Snacks or,” Emily wiggles her eyebrows for effect, “_snacks_?”

“You’ll have to come in to find out.”

She enters, taking a seat on the bed. Nothing was asked of her so she brought nothing. Mal’s clearly out in the hall so it’s just her and Kelley, which she wasn’t fully expecting. She also has no idea at all what Kelley has in store for her, which must show on her face because Kelley just laughs and says, “Relax. No murder. For now. I figured you’d still be up and Shrek is on.”

Emily looks to the TV, and sure enough she finds Shrek arguing with Donkey on screen. Kelley motions for her to move further up the bed and hands her a bag of chips, taking a seat beside her.

And then they just watch.

Emily keeps interrupting with choice jokes, and Kelley laughs in the appropriate places, hogging the chips.

_It was all remarkably normal_, Emily thinks later, when she’s reflecting on this moment and wondering what the fuck was going through Kelley’s mind.

See, sometime in the middle of the film, when Emily’s waxing poetic about comparing an ogre to a fucking onion, Kelley drops a hand on Emily’s thigh.

And then just leaves it there. Like that’s normal.

Emily struggles to keep the surprise out of her voice; tries to remember what she was about to say. She’s still searching her brain when she feels Kelley start to draw circles on her thigh with her finger.

And finally Emily places a hand over Kelley’s, stopping the movement.

“Can you—it’s hard to concentrate when you—“

And Kelley looks positively gleeful, “Oh, it’s hard to concentrate?”

She’s trying to make fun of Emily, which Emily totally gets, but for whatever reason Emily finds herself completely entranced by the image of their hands on top of each other. She lifts her hand, experimentally weaving her fingers into Kelley’s and because she’s so busy looking down she misses the softening of Kelley’s expression; the slow and gentle way Kelley leans forward.

Emily has only just fully entwined their hands when Kelley captures her lips in a kiss.

And like, _holy fuck_. She’s kissing Kelley O’Hara.

Kelley leans forward, reaching up with her other hand to cup Emily’s cheek. Emily all but melts against her, her confusion fading in a wave of pleasure that travels straight to her gut. She tries her best to take it all in: their hands entwined in her lap, Kelley’s gentle breathing, the soft way she’s caressing Emily’s cheek. She feels Kelley open her mouth against hers and lick demandingly at her lips and suddenly Kelley’s tongue is in her mouth.

And… like, what the fuck? This was an _option_? She would’ve jumped on the kissing Kelley O’Hara train like years earlier if she’d fucking known she could have, holy shit.

Kelley shifts around to lean over her, straddling her, and Emily experimentally puts her hands on Kelley’s hips, trying to steady her. She has no idea how her shaky hands will accomplish that.

When Kelley pulls back for a breath Emily can’t help herself, it just slips out: “so much for fucking _incest_.”

And Kelley laughs, pulling Emily back in, kissing her jaw. Emily leans to one side, letting Kelley find her angle, breathing hard because _holy fuck_. She feels one of Kelley’s hands slip its way down between their bodies and braces herself for impact, unsure but excited about where this is going.

But she never gets to find out, because they hear Mal at the door, trying to figure out how to open it. She thanks whatever god made Mal so door-challenged, because it takes a full three seconds before she and Kelley are on opposite sides of the bed, ready to pretend they were just hanging out and watching Shrek.

Turns out Mal doesn't really care, because she heads straight into the bathroom. She doesn’t even spare them a look, and she doesn’t have to, because they can see the tears in her eyes either way. Kelley looks to Emily, concerned, before getting up and heading over to the bathroom door.

“Mal? Everything okay? Can I come in?”

“… I’m. I’m fine.”

“Can I come in?” Kelley asks again, her sweet big sister voice coming into play, and that’s when Emily knows it’s over.

She feels a pang of jealousy directed at Mal—she never gets Kelley alone, always has to share her, even now that they…

…well, what exactly was that?

Once Mal opens the door, Kelley shoots Emily an apologetic look.

Emily understands that she has to leave now. She doesn’t want to. She wants to ask Kelley what that was; where that was going. She wants to know what Kelley thought about it.

(She wants to know how likely it is to happen again.)

But Kelley disappears behind the bathroom door, selflessly jumping into action, and Emily leaves feeling like a selfish asshole.

And when she’s back in her room, staring up at the ceiling, embarrassed about how wet she is, she pictures Kelley straddling her again. She pictures Kelley’s eyes when she pulled back, Kelley’s hands in her hair.

She chances a glance at Alyssa, asleep, before slipping a hand down her pants to finish the job.

\- + - + - + -

If it matters at all to Kelley, it doesn’t show.

That’s really all Emily can think to herself as she’s watching Kelley sip a juice box and chat up Becky about some Royals-related gossip across the table.

It’s been more than twelve hours since Emily had Kelley’s tongue in her mouth and for whatever reason it’s not something that’s been addressed yet, which is really starting to get under Emily’s skin.

Practice was weird because Emily was weird. They did all their usual drills and Kelley did great. It's stupid that Emily spent the whole practice watching her, but what else was she going to do? She couldn’t seem to stop herself: It's like Kelley occupied every working facet of her brain. She just couldn’t look away.

And lunch is no different. Emily sits beside Lindsey and across from Mal, cutting up her chicken into tiny bits and trying her best to not look like she’s watching Kelley. But she’s watching her. Watching her laugh at something Becky’s said. Watching her text someone—not Emily—and then go back to laughing at Becky.

She’s thankful Linds asked like two questions about her mood and then moved on, because she has no idea how she’d go about explaining this. She’s not pensive. She doesn’t like, _dwell_ on shit. 

Hooking up with a teammate is unheard of for Emily because Emily’s not really the type that hooks up. She remembers the first time Hayley and Caitlin had asked her about it—the way they’d just assumed Emily regularly took girls home. The way they assumed she had that type of game; that level of experience. It’s not really that uncommon an assumption turns out. But… Emily’s head has always been elsewhere. She’s always been career focused, and she’s made a lot of sacrifices for it.

(And, well, there was also that decade or so where she fucking hated herself for her sexuality, because that’s a prerequisite where she comes from. In fact, Kelley O’Hara could tell you all about that, but she’s getting off track—)

It’s not like Emily was doing anything to dissuade people from thinking she had that type of game, but… it just wasn’t the truth. She’d had a few relationships: but all of them involved intense feelings first. She’d never really just hooked up with someone before.

Which made what happened all that much more important to her.

See, Kelley O’Hara was just—

How to even explain? Emily had basically had a crush on the woman before she’d even met her. She was endlessly intimidated by her, and also tremendously inspired by her. No one else on the national team had put as much time into developing her as a player. Her adoration for Kelley felt overwhelming at times, and she’d done everything in her power to push it all aside in favor of an actual friendship with her.

And all it took was one kiss for all of that to unravel.

She watches as Kelley gets up to get another plate, and for once Kelley actually meets her eyes. She tilts her head a little, smiling, questioning, and Emily drops her eyes to her plate.

Emily doesn’t actually know what’s worse: not knowing how Kelley feels about last night or asking and knowing for sure it meant nothing to her.

She’s not ready to find out.

\- + - + - + -

When she receives a text later that night, her heart literally skips a beat:

**miss kelley:** You up?

**miss kelley:** Come over

She doesn’t even actually respond, just stands quickly and finds her shoes, shoving them on and not bothering to tie them.

Inside, her heart flutters with hope: this was the text she’d been waiting for all day. The one she feared would never come.

She rushes up the stairs, practically dashing to the door before stopping and composing herself. She knocks twice.

And the door opens to Alex Morgan, who looks at Emily like somehow her showing up at the door is the equivalent of getting Punk’d.

“Who invited Sonnett?”

Emily gives Alex a friendly shove as she passes through the doorway, deflating when she sees that Kelley’s room is full of people: Ash, Ali, Alex, Allie… and Kelley, cuddled into the blankets, looking up at Emily with a sleepy smile, “I did.”

“Why?” Allie says, and Emily just shoots her a rude look.

“Y’all spent all day teasing me about my wifey. I missed her.” And Kelley lifts the covers, inviting Emily in. Emily looks around at the rest of the room, wary, but decides this is weirder if she makes it weird. She kicks off her shoes and climbs under the covers and Kelley takes an arm and throws it around her, moving her head into Emily’s lap as Emily sits up against the pillows.

She’s never felt so stiff and awkward.

“Aw, Kell, don’t go to sleep,” Allie says, and then looks to Emily, “actually, maybe you can help us. We’ve been trying to get this one to go out with us but she refuses to leave her bed.”

At that, Kelley curls into her more, burying her face into Emily’s hoodie. Emily feels tremendously awkward, and, like always, tries to find a way to make it funny: “What’s in it for me?”

Allie rolls her eyes as Alex says, “You can come.”

“Nuh uh.” Kelley says, sounding like a little baby, “she’s gonna stay right here with me.” She curls into Emily's lap, shutting her eyes happily. Emily looks up at Alex, on edge. 

Alex just stands there, arms crossed, unimpressed, looking at the two of them. A whole beat passes before she says, “you know what, fine. Let’s go.”

And the room almost seems relieved, as though they were waiting for Alex to come to that conclusion. They start to head toward the door as Alex sends them one last glance and adds, “Last chance?”

Kelley just shakes her head, yawning, and Alex finally leaves.

The door shuts, and now they’re actually alone.

Emily feels Kelley shift her head around in her lap, getting comfortable. She doesn’t really know what to do with her hands so she lifts one experimentally, rubbing at the little hairs at the base of Kelley’s neck. Kelley releases a soft moan and Emily stiffens.

“Relax. No one can get back in here without knocking on the door.”

Emily rubs down Kelley’s back and when her hand hits Kelley’s hip Kelley shifts again, turning over to look up at her.

“So I hear you missed me.” Yes, that’s what Emily gathered from that conversation, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try to talk Kelley into expanding on that.

“You caught me.” She stares at Emily from her lap, “I could not get those assholes out of here fast enough. Thank you for coming so quickly and being my buffer.”

Kelley sits up, leaning in and kissing Emily. “My hero.”

They kiss slowly, softly. Like they have all the time in the world. Kelley eventually sits up even further, moving to straddle Emily, and as Emily’s hands settle on her hips again, Emily finds herself thinking too much.

(So this _wasn’t_ a one-time thing.)

She pulls back from Kelley, pressing her thumbs into her hips and angling herself to look up at her.

“Hi.” Kelley says, smugly. “Any reason we stopped?”

And Emily watches her with reverence, unsure how to express what’s beating inside her heart. She wants to ask why they’re doing this. What Kelley wants. What she’s planning.

“Just… looking at you.”

“Yeah?”

“Wondering what’s going on inside your head.”

And Kelley chuckles at that, “Not a whole lot. Just thinking about taking your shirt off.”

Kelley leans back in, stealing a few kisses before Emily pulls back again and forces herself to ask what’s on her mind—she has to know once and for all. She can’t let Kelley avoid the question.

“Kell—what is this?”

Kelley looks at her, hesitating, and for the first time in a long time Emily sees a frown grace her features. But in a flash it’s gone and Kelley brightens, leaning in so they’re nose to nose.

“Kissing, Sonnett.” She kisses her again, and Emily honestly doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to the feeling, “Just uncomplicated kissing.”

Emily forces herself to stay calm, to shove off the pieces of her that want to complicate this; to make it into something bigger than it needs to be. If Kelley wants uncomplicated kissing, then Emily will figure out how to do uncomplicated kissing.


	2. let's get wrecked on poptarts and sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the filthiest thing i've ever posted  
you're welcome  
it probably only gets filthier from here tbh
> 
> soran 5ever  
tobin + sonnett = my kryptonite 
> 
> chapter title from motion city soundtrack's "it had to be you"
> 
> yelling at me to update on twitter is oddly effective come try it @redacted_rising

They were supposed to be downstairs ten minutes ago. 

It’s a thought that Emily keeps repeating over and over again in her mind, as though that alone will give her the willpower to pull away from Kelley, who currently has her pinned against the bathroom counter of her hotel room. Kelley, who moves impatiently between her legs. Kelley, who, with hands on her thighs, lets her teeth graze the edge of Emily’s jaw as she kisses her way up to her ear. 

And Emily can barely concentrate. She can feel the phone buzzing on the counter top, reminding her she needs to get them out of here. But like, how could she possibly pull away?

“Kell…” she tries her words, “we gotta—“

She’s cut off by her own moan as Kelley brushes a thumb between her legs, still kissing her jaw. They’re both clad in only swimsuits and Emily swears at this rate people are going to see the wetness between her legs before they even get in the hot tub. 

“We gotta what?” Kelley says innocently in her ear, and Emily can feel the teasing in her voice. Realizing her mouth is hanging wide open in want, Emily shuts it quickly, blushing. 

Emily swallows loudly as Kelley drops lower, kissing down her abdomen. She leaves sloppy wet kisses, humming happily against Emily’s skin, and it takes all of Emily’s effort just to pull herself away from the sight.

Emily takes the breathing room for what it is and picks up her phone to see ten missed texts from Rose and Sam. Her FaceID opens them immediately, and she almost is able to read them before she feels Kelley push her top up and put her mouth on her left nipple. Emily gasps a little as Kelley circles it with her tongue. 

She’s fully overwhelmed by this—by what Kelley’s doing, by the secret they’re keeping, by how fast Kelley seems to want to move—and before she can even think it through she’s got her hands in Kelley’s hair, taking the sides of her head in her palms and gently pushing back. 

She feels a question in Kelley’s eyes—_is everything okay?—_as she pulls away from Emily’s breast, and before she can even ask it, Emily leans in and kisses her. 

(She doesn’t want Kelley to misunderstand; they just really have to get out of here.)

“We gotta go.” Emily says against Kelley’s lips.

Kelley chases Emily’s words with another kiss. 

“Kell, come on. Rose is already gonna give me so much shit.” 

And Kelley finally relents, taking a step out of Emily’s space and reaching out to help lift her off the counter. They don’t break eye contact, and eventually Emily can’t help but smile at Kelley’s soft grin. 

Now standing, Emily can feel how wet she is. She shifts awkwardly, feeling weird about it. She grabs her t-shirt off the floor, slipping it over her head.

“So self-conscious.” Kelley says as Emily readjusts the shirt in the mirror. 

Emily’s response is so immediate she doesn’t even think about it, “We can’t all be you, Kell.” She turns back to look at her hair in the mirror and while she’s pushing it around she feels Kelley come up behind her, arms coming around her in a hug from behind. 

“You’re beautiful.” Is all she says, and then she kisses Emily on the cheek. Emily watches her in the mirror, face heating up at the compliment. 

(Sometimes there are these _ moments _. Moments where Kelley’s adorably sweet and everything feels right.)

(They never last.)

“Come on, I’m sure all the girls tell you that.” Kelley says, arms still around her. Not making eye contact. Emily watches her in the mirror, confused.

_ What other girls? _

Kelley holds her a beat longer than necessary and then pulls back, taking her wrist. “Come on, time to hangout with the devil children.” 

\- + - + - + -

They arrive at the hot tub to huge amounts of teasing, which they both handle with practiced ease. Emily slots in beside Lindsey, deliberately putting space between herself and Kelley in an effort to keep them honest. She sees Kelley shoot her a glance, but drops her gaze before Kelley can meet her eyes—it's probably best for everyone involved if they don't make eye contact. 

Sam’s in the midst of a story and Rose keeps interrupting with asides and it’s all decently funny, but Emily still finds herself in this weird distant headspace. 

This whole thing with Kelley has turned the whole camp on its head for her, and now that it’s coming to a close, she has no idea what to think. 

See, kissing Kelley had started off as casual exploration when they were alone and quickly escalated into something more bold and intense. Now, days later, they’d met up countless times, each time more passionate than the last. Emily felt it like a flame in her gut—it had started small, but each and every time they indulged it seemed to grow bigger, into something she desperately needed extinguished. And, for better or for worse, Kelley seemed to feel the same way. They made out in every closet, up against every surface. They found moments alone and exploited them: in cars, on elevators, in bathrooms—and through it all they told no one and spoke nothing of it. It was casual as far as Kelley was concerned, and Emily was trying her best to be okay with that. 

But the truth was, it was driving her_ insane _. 

Having Kelley—in literally any capacity—had made Emily more ridiculously jealous, possessive, and insecure than she had any right to be. She found herself pissed at Alex for stealing Kelley away for a few hours, pissed at Lindsey and Sam for pulling her away from time with Kelley, pissed at Mal for crying on Kelley’s goddamn shoulder every single fucking night. 

She wanted Kelley all the time. Everywhere. 

And she had no right to.

And all of this—the kissing, the secret, the goddamn _ need _ she felt inside her—had served to do what many thought was impossible: it had rendered Emily speechless. But really, like, what was there to say? 

Because Emily couldn’t tell anyone. They’d tell her she was being stupid. They’d accuse Kelley of manipulating her; of tricking her into doing something she had no problem agreeing to do; something she’d agree to again and again, turns out, if only because at least then she’d have had Kelley at least once in her life. 

(They’d tell her to tell Kelley how she feels.)

(But she can’t.)

“Sonny.” Lindsey says, leaning over into Emily’s space so as not to disrupt the larger conversation, “you okay?” 

Emily swallows, readying her response, and looks across the way at Kelley, who gives her a sly smile. She can feel Kelley’s leg against her calf, rubbing its way slowly up and down. Watching Emily hesitate, Kelley’s smile grows. 

Emily pointedly looks away. 

She holds back an eyeroll, trying to remember what she meant to say to Lindsey. She’s dumbstruck, and she can feel Kelley across the way, laughing quietly about it. 

“_ Sonnett. _” Lindsey says, and Emily cuts her off too quickly: “I’m fine.” 

“You sure?”

“Positive.” 

She sneaks another look at Kelley, who, just like she expected, is grinning. She can’t help but smile, laughing a little when Kelley laughs. 

Lindsey watches them, confused. She looks like she wants to say something but doesn’t, which Emily’s grateful for. She’s not sure how she’d explain any of this, anyway. 

No longer did Emily’s feelings seem manageable. She was getting worse and worse at hiding them every day. And if the way Lindsey was looking at her was any indication, people had already started to notice.

Fuck.

\- + - + - + -

Emily had really, honestly, just needed to use the bathroom. 

She hadn’t meant to end up here again, for the second time in two hours, legs wrapped around Kelley as they kissed against the bathroom counter. 

And at this point it feels like they’re just getting sloppy—Kelley waiting not very long at all to dismiss herself from the group after Emily had, the two of them wrapped together like this in a public restroom where they can be interrupted at any time—but Emily can’t complain. Not when Kelley kisses like she does. Not when having Kelley against her like this serves as her only reminder that some part of Kelley wants Emily enough to risk all of this.

And like, side note on that—she’s never been this thoroughly _ wanted _ before in her life. Kelley initiates everything and leads the attack, so to speak; it’s starting to make Emily feel like a bit of a pillow princess. Kelley seems so hell-bent on ravishing Emily that it’s been hard for Emily to even find a second to return the favor… not that Kelley seems to be complaining. 

And her mind is just trying to wrap itself around that when the bathroom door swings open to Tobin Heath, who yelps a little, putting her entire arm over her eyes. 

Emily pushes back instantly and Kelley takes a full step away from the counter, and then five long seconds pass where no one says anything. Emily can hear her heart beating in her ears. 

“Tobin—“ Emily starts, when it becomes clear Kelley’s not going to.

“Just, uh, take it somewhere less public next time.” Is all Tobin says, and she walks into a stall, shutting it behind her.

And Kelley turns to Emily and starts to laugh a little but Emily can’t laugh, not at that, so she says, “Kell, it’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.” Kelley says, and then she takes a step forward again, resting her hands on Emily’s thighs. She rolls her eyes at Emily’s frown, “It’s just Tobin. She’s not gonna tell anyone, right Tobs?”

They hear a loud sigh from Tobin’s stall. 

“See?” Kelley helps Emily down from the counter, “Calm down, squirt.” 

She smacks Emily’s ass, winking at her in the mirror, and then makes her way toward the door. 

“Wait two minutes,” is all Kelley says. Emily doesn’t even bother arguing that she was the one who went to the bathroom first. She just stares into the bathroom mirror and lets Kelley go. 

Emily washes her hands again, rubbing at them till she hears the toilet flush. She slips out before she comes face to face with Tobin, unable to decide what Tobin might say to her. 

Whatever it is, she’s not ready for it. 

\- + - + - + -

They’re at the airport. 

It’s the last day of camp and they’re at the airport and Emily doesn’t know what happens now. 

They’d been interrupted last night before they’d even really gotten started (a team card game night, which was like, fun, but not like, making-out-with-Kelley fun) and the question she had—the one that was on the tip of her tongue all evening—she never got a chance to ask:

_ What happened now? _

Would the kissing continue? Where? How? Did Kelley still want her?

They’ve made it through security and are now at the point where people presumably split and go off to their separate gates. She sees AD looking up at the board, trying to determine the gate number for their Portland flight. 

Emily closes her eyes, willing herself to calm down. She feels someone come up behind her and turns to see Lindsey giving her a strange look.

“You okay?” Is all she asks. Emily just nods, not trusting her words. 

The group starts dispersing, saying their goodbyes, and Emily gives Christen a quick hug before finding herself enveloped from behind in familiar muscular arms. Emily turns around, meeting Kelley’s amused expression, and then falls into her arms. They hug deeply. 

“Kell—“ She says, and cuts herself off because she wasn’t sure what she was trying to say, anyway. 

“Utah.” Kelley says in her ear before she can say anything else, “stay with me when you guys come to Utah.”

She whispers it, and Emily swears she feels a shiver run up her spine: Kelley wants her to stay at her place. In Utah. Alone together. 

She can’t help smiling the way she does. They pull back and Kelley smiles wide, too, before forcing her face into a more neutral expression. 

“Utah.” Emily says, and Kelley’s face quirks up in a smile again. Emily sees a familiar glint in Kelley’s eye—the one that usually appears right before Kelley’s about to kiss her—but instead of a kiss, Kelley reaches forward to push down the bill of her cap playfully. 

“See you then, squirt.” 

Kelley walks away, throwing one last coy look over her shoulder at Emily, and Emily swears she might just melt then and there. Instead she turns and follows Lindsey to the terminal, trying her best to keep from smiling like a total dork. 

\- + - + - + -

Two weeks feels like an entire lifetime. 

And she’s actually almost three days into the two weeks now, so time _ is _passing, but it still feels like forever. They have a game against North Carolina in a few days, and Emily should really be focused on that, but… 

She can’t stop replaying Kelley’s story. 

It’s labeled “Close Friends” and depicts Kelley hiking with… 

Well, whoever she is, Emily doesn’t know her. 

And god, like, when did she get like this? When did she start tracking Kelley’s every move like some type of psycho? 

She clicks through the woman’s instagram (which is weirdly public?) and sees photos of her hiking, surfing, reading books.

(Emily could stand to read more books.) 

She doesn’t see Kelley at all on this woman’s profile—so maybe she’s a new friend? Weirdly, that doesn’t make Emily feel any better. She flops back on her bed, holding her phone above her face. 

Emily clicks back to Kelley’s photos, scrolling through them. She can’t get Kelley out of her head and it’s making her insufferable to be around. 

She’s never been this quiet at practice, this unwilling to take part in group shenanigans, this sluggish. She finds herself seeing the color of Kelley’s eyes in the pitch, hearing her laugh in a crowd, searching for her in the stands. She’s taken to spending most of her time alone, willing herself to snap out of it. But she can’t.

Caitlin and Hayley have started to take playful stabs at what it could be, going so far as to suggest Emily’s got a secret lover she’s not telling anyone about. Emily only rolls her eyes at that. 

Lindsey is arguably worse, acting like Emily’s change in behavior is the toughest thing to ever happen to their friendship. It makes Emily feel crazy guilty. She starts avoiding spending time with her. 

(It’s all better than trying to interact with Tobin.)

(Tobin, who won’t even look at her.) 

She keeps scrolling until she finds a particularly good picture of Kelley, one where her abs are on full display, and before she can even stop herself her fingers dip below the band of her sweatpants, rubbing softly. 

(What would Kelley say about her getting off like this?)

(She would probably find it hot.)

(Fuck.)

She shuts her eyes, letting the hand with the phone with it drop back down to the bed and instead letting her mind take over. Her brain easily supplies the sound of Kelley breathing against her, and she feels a shot of arousal at the picture her mind conjures of Kelley in her lap. She imagines Kelley’s eyes, her lips, her abs… and just as she’s really starting to get into it, just as her breathing starts to change—

—her phone blares with a FaceTime call. 

Emily shuts her eyes, wincing. She removes her hand from her pants, wiping it on her leg before turning over to see Kelley O’Hara’s smiling face on her phone’s lockscreen.

Fuck. 

She scrambles up, suddenly on edge, and takes a second to smooth down her hair before picking up the phone and trying to answer it as nonchalantly as possible.

She answers the call and screen changes to Kelley lying in bed. 

“There she is.” Kelley says, smiling softly at Emily, and Emily wonders when her life started to revolve around making Kelley smile at her like that.

“Hey.” Emily says. She leans back in her own bed, stretching, trying to pretend she was anywhere close to sleeping.

“Hey. Miss you.” Kelley says, and that’s all it takes for something in Emily’s gut to melt like butter. 

She’s got it so bad.

\- + - + - + -

They talk nearly all the time. 

And this isn’t wholly unusual—Kelley and Emily have always kept in near-constant contact—but Emily can’t help but read into it. She plays back bits of their conversations in her head, keeping count of every “I miss you”, every implication that Kelley may have more-than-friendly feelings for her. 

The results are inconclusive. 

She finds herself staring deep into her latte, as though the answers to all of her questions about Kelley will be found in its foamy, creamy consistency. She ordered this latte the last time she brought Kelley to this cafe, now over a year ago. 

Things seemed so normal then.

“Sonny.”

Emily looks up to meet Lindsey’s troubled gaze. 

“Hmmm?” She says, holding her latte up to her lips. When she sees Lindsey frown she knows what’s coming:

“Okay, cut the shit. What the fuck is up with you?”

She shakes her head to keep from smiling; that was more profanity than expected. When she doesn’t immediately answer, Lindsey takes it as license to continue. 

“You’re just like… not here. Your brain’s like, half-off.” 

“At least I’m heavily discounted?” Emily adds, and Lindsey struggles to keep the smile off her face: “Not what I meant and you know it.” 

They fall into a silence. Lindsey frowns at Emily, expecting some type of explanation Emily doesn’t know how to give.

“_ Sonny _.” Lindsey says expectantly. 

Emily just sighs, averting her eyes, “I don’t know what you want me to say, Linds. I’m not sure what’s going on… I just feel, like, down or something.”

“Oh.” Lindsey says, and her expression softens a little, “like depression or something?” 

“Or something.” Emily says, not willing to lie. She hates this. This whole conversation; this whole situation. 

“And Kelley…“ Lindsey starts, and holy shit, how obvious were they? “You’ve been texting her a lot.” 

“She’s, uh, been helping me.” Emily says, lamely. 

And Lindsey gets all serious, the way she always does when things take an unexpected turn, “Oh.” 

Emily hates this.

She hates the idea that if she were depressed she wouldn’t run to Lindsey first. She would; _ of course _ she would. Sure, she and Kelley are… whatever they are… but Lindsey’s her _ person _. And now she’s giving her this look that stings hot with betrayal. 

“Well,” Lindsey says, and her voice breaks a little, “you know I’m always here.”

Emily can’t even look her in the eye. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just… not ready to talk about it yet.” 

“Got it.” Lindsey says, and Emily can hear the hurt in her voice. She stands then, looking antsy: “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” 

And then she leaves. Emily turns and watches her head into the coffee shop, feeling like the shittiest friend who ever lived. 

\- + - + - + -

Emily gets off the plane to the fresh smell of mountain air and for the first time in weeks, she feels like she can breathe again. 

She tries to keep the contented smile off her face, tries to rid herself of the natural pep in her step, tries to fall in line with how the rest of the team feels: exhausted from their flight and ready to crash at the hotel. 

Emily had done her research and planning. Getting in this late actually very much suited her plan—Lindsey, Cait, Ellie, and Hayley were pretty beat from the practice-followed-by-plane, and for some reason they had Emily rooming with Tobin. It should be easy enough to sneak out tonight and make her way to Kelley’s for diner and… well, more. 

Kelley was certainly counting on them seeing each other tonight, asking for updates on Emily’s ETA. Emily was going to do everything in her power to make it happen without alerting her teammates to the fact that she was leaving the hotel at all. A difficult feat. 

There were upsides and downsides to rooming with Tobin. Upside: she already vaguely knew that Emily and Kelley were… involved. And true to Kelley’s word Tobin seemingly had said nothing to no one. Another great upside: Tobin might not even be spending the night in the hotel—surely she’d be trying to sleep at Christen’s, right? 

The obvious downside was… well, whatever was happening now.

See, they were in the room unpacking in silence. 

It’d been radio silence from Tobin since the bathroom incident. Emily doesn’t fully know what to make of it.

Emily puts her focus into packing an overnight bag for Kelley’s. She pulls out a duffle, moving a few clothes into it, and when she turns around she finds Tobin watching her with a curious expression.

“Going somewhere?” Is all Tobin says. Emily looks up at her, not sure what Tobin wants her to say.

They sit in silence for a few seconds until Tobin finally breaks it, “Hey, uh. You know I love Kell. But like... she’s like… a wildfire.”

She can see Tobin futzing with the metaphor in her head, trying to figure out what she’s going to say next. Emily, for her part, is just trying to maintain a normal heart rate—this is the first conversation it feels like she’s ever had about Kelley, and she’s hanging on every word. 

“And people think you’re like her, but… you’re not.” Tobin bites her lip awkwardly, “you’re like me.” 

Emily opens her mouth to speak, but Tobin cuts her off, “You’re like me because people think you’ve got game but you don’t.” Tobin smiles a little at that, and Emily feels like part of her should be offended, “you don’t, and you’re gonna catch feelings.” 

Tobin’s eyes scan Emily’s face, “maybe you already have.” 

Emily shuts her eyes tightly then, feeling caught. She doesn’t open them, sitting in this moment, this awful sense of dread. 

(She already had feelings. Strong, impenetrable feelings. And they're eating her alive.)

She feels Tobin wrap her arms around her, holding her close. “It’s okay.” 

“What do I do?” Emily asks in a shaky voice. Tears sting at her eyes. 

“I wish I knew.” Is all Tobin says, and Emily laughs against her. Tobin rubs awkwardly at her back.

\- + - + - + -

Kelley’s apartment complex is nice. Her front door has one of those little knocker things, and Emily hesitantly takes it in her hand, tapping it against the door three times. 

The Utah air is frigid, and Emily’s not dressed for it. She shivers a bit, turning away from the breeze, and when the door swings open Kelley O’Hara stands on the other side, looking at her like she’s a lost little bird.

“Come in.” She says, waving Emily in. She shuts the door, taking Emily in her arms. 

They hug for a long while, Emily letting her face fall into Kelley’s shoulder. Kelley’s dressed in practically nothing—a tank top and running shorts—and Emily takes this moment to rest her frozen nose against Kelley’s bare neck.

“Ooh, cold.” Is all Kelley says. She doesn’t stop holding her. She presses a soft kiss to Emily’s hairline, and Emily can’t hold back her smile. 

They stand like that for a long while until Kelley finally pulls away. She keeps a hand low on Emily’s back, walking her into the room. 

“So this is the place.” 

Kelley’s place is the right amount of homey, and as much of a mess as Emily expected. It’s not dissimilar to what Kelley’s apartment in Georgia looks like, and Emily instantly feels at home. She looks to the kitchen to see something on the stove. 

“You cooked?” Emily says.

“You sound shocked.” 

“I’m not shocked! What’d you cook?” 

“Veggie noodles with more veggies.” Kelley says as she wanders to the fridge and pulls out two large cans of Budweiser, “and beers!”

“Sounds like a balanced diet.” Emily says. 

Kelley hands her a beer, “Cheers.”

Emily throws it back, and when she’s had enough she puts her beer down on the counter, glancing over at Kelley who gives her a funny look.

“You’ve got a beer mustache.” Kelley says, bemused. 

Emily smiles at that, laughing, “is it hot?” 

And Kelley leans forward, taking one hand and bringing it up to Emily’s cheek. She rubs softly at it, her expression softening. She leans in and kisses Emily gently, lapping at her upper lip. And sure, Emily expected this, but she didn’t expect it this fast. She runs a hand along Kelley’s jaw, smiling into the kiss. 

(Emily’s silently glad she’s not the only one who has been craving this.) 

They kiss softly, standing there at the counter, Kelley’s hand firm on Emily’s hip. Kelley puts her beer down, backing Emily more firmly into the counter before taking both Emily’s thighs in her arms and lifting Emily up onto it. 

And to be honest, Emily’s always been the stronger one in every relationship she’s ever been in, so this is insanely hot. She lets herself be leaned over the kitchen island, and before she can even register what’s happening Kelley’s got Emily’s shirt off and bra unhooked.

“Moving fast.” Emily says, leaning in to kiss Kelley.

“Making up for lost time.” Kelley says, kissing her again before adding, “and now that we won’t get interrupted…”

She shoves her hand in Emily’s pants, moving quickly. Emily leans forward, trying to grab at Kelley’s shirt, but Kelley gently takes Emily’s wrist, pushing her hand back into her chest. She gently leans Emily back, laying her flat on the kitchen island. Emily looks up at her, confused.

“Just… let me do this.” 

Emily’s hands fall back above her head, held together by one of Kelley’s. Kelley steps between Emily’s legs and leans over her, sucking a hardened nipple into her mouth. Emily moans loudly, feeling reckless. Her back arches up off the cold counter. 

Kelley sucks at her nipple, circling it with her tongue, pinching the other between her fingers. When she can’t find a good angle she climbs onto the counter, holding herself above Emily, and then shoves her hand back down Emily’s pants. But her fingers remain completely still over Emily’s clit. It’s frustrating.

“Mmm. Kell.” Emily says, trying to remind her. She leans up to kiss her and they get distracted for a second until the strong pulse Emily feels in her clit starts to get to her. 

“Miss Kelley—” She starts, and it’s easily the most embarrassing thing she’s ever said the moment it escapes from her lips. She shuts her eyes in embarrassment and Kelley pulls back, grinning.

She laughs a little, and Emily, despite her embarrassment, laughs along with her.

“It just slipped out.”

“That’s okay. It’s doing it for me.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Kelley leans in again, kissing her collarbone, _ finally _ moving her fingers. Emily’s criminally wet and feels it getting all over her underwear, which she kind of wishes Kelley would just take off, but clearly ravishing a half-clothed Emily in her kitchen is something Kelley seems dead set on, so Emily keeps her mouth shut. 

Well, not shut exactly. She’s panting. She feels the pressure building. Kelley’s fingers, Kelley’s breathing, the way Kelley’s entire body has her pressed against this cold countertop--she shuts her eyes, her breath unsteady. She feels Kelley building with her, rubbing faster and faster until suddenly she’s pressing in and—

Eyes shut, Emily’s head falls into Kelley’s neck. She breathes deeply against her, smiling against her collarbone. Kelley leans over to kiss her forehead, then her cheek. She lingers there, smiling against her cheekbone, nose pressing into the side of her face, breathing her in. 

And for a moment, Emily’s not scared. 

She turns, kissing Kelley with as much affection as she can muster, trying to communicate how much she feels for her. Kelley melts against her, waiting till the kiss is over to roll over and lie beside her on the counter. 

She’s breathless when she says, “I’ve fantasized about that for ages.”

“Against the cold countertop? Really?” Emily laughs, and Kelley laughs too, expression guilty. Exuding confidence she doesn’t necessarily feel, Emily adds: “Was it as good as you thought it would be?”

Kelley just laughs, “Better.” 

She turns to look at her then, and when their eyes meet she feels something shift. The tension between them feels different, and maybe it all comes down to this: rather than meeting her eyes, Kelley’s gaze keeps shifting down to her lips. 

It feels good to be wanted.

They kiss a few times, long and slow, before Kelley pulls back a little. Her expression is uncharacteristically shy, and she won’t meet Emily’s eyes. 

  
“I like having you here.” And Emily's heart melts on the spot. 

“Yeah?” Emily curls into her, wrapping her arms around her and tucking her head under Kelley’s chin. 

“Yeah,” Kelley sighs against her hair. They lie like that for a while, curled up on the hard, cold kitchen counter, and Emily can’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of it all. She doesn’t know where her shirt is. She turns to look up at the ceiling, resting her head on Kelley’s shoulder.

“Hey Miss Kelley?”

“Hmm?” 

“We should probably eat.”


	3. part of me wants you, but most of me needs you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for excessive filth... but what is sunday morning without smut? or like, smut with feelings
> 
> chapter title pulled from phoebe bridgers' "steamroller"
> 
> shoutout to holladay street and @letlaurensang on twitter for their incredibly kind words. comments fuel me. come shout at me on twitter @redacted_rising

They don’t sleep.

Instead, they kiss sleepily for hours, curling into each other, enjoying the warmth of each other’s skin. Kelley runs fingers through Emily’s hair, rubbing gently at her temples. Emily noses at the underside of Kelley’s chin, tangling their legs together. They drift in and out of consciousness, happily wrapped up in each other, and when Emily finally wakes she finds Kelley curled around her, hand pressed to her abdomen right under her breasts.

There’s an even breathing against the back of Emily’s neck that lets her know Kelley’s still asleep, and part of her feels relief knowing she gets to enjoy a few more blissful minutes of this moment before reality sets in.

It still feels a little like a dream.

Emily looks down at Kelley’s freckled elbow, lifting it slightly so she can turn around in her arms. She finds Kelley’s eyes shut and mouth wide open, and for some reason the sight makes Emily smile.

This isn’t the first time Emily had woken up beside Kelley, but it was the first time it’d ever felt like this. Last night was one of the best nights of Emily’s life—the kissing, the sex, the break they’d taken for two rounds of FIFA—but she would trade the entire night for this moment now, waking up to Kelley like this.

She doesn’t know how long she can hold this in.

And yes, objectively this is really week two of them hooking up (despite a month or so of being in this loose pact), but Emily already feels herself chafing under the pressure of keeping it casual.

She doesn’t want casual.

She wants Kelley.

Kelley, whose eyelashes she can count from this distance. Kelley, whose abs she can feel rising and falling against her own. Kelley, who spent twenty minutes yesterday sucking hickeys into her pelvis and thighs. 

(Emily's not sure she'll ever be able to call her "Miss Kelley" in public again.) 

Emily counts the freckles on Kelley’s face, moving closer. She leans in, considering kissing Kelley, but finds herself hesitating. She feels more than watches Kelley wake: the change in her breathing, the way her hazel eyes blink open. Kelley grins a little, leaning in to peck Emily on the lips.

“Mornin’.” Kelley’s voice is still heavy with sleep but causing her soft smile and little stretch is entirely worth it. Their breasts brush a little as Kelley stretches, causing Kelley to pull back subconsciously, surprised.

“We’re naked,” she says, matter-of-factly. Emily just laughs.

And for some reason Emily imagined Kelley would wake up, roll over, and stop being cuddly and affectionate, but instead the opposite happens. Kelley leans forward again, resting her face against Emily’s and shutting her eyes. She breathes in deep and throws an arm around Emily’s back, pulling her into a hug. They lie there, chests rising and falling together, and Emily feels strangely at peace.

Well, except for one thing.

“I gotta use the bathroom.” Emily says, pulling back. Kelley pouts a little, reaching for her as she pulls back, but Emily’s still able to wiggle herself out.

“Okay but come back. I need at least another hour of cuddles.”

“Be right there.” Emily says, putting an arm over her chest as she sneaks over to Kelley’s bathroom. She almost trips in a pile of Kelley’s clothes, which are everywhere, and when she looks down she realizes she doesn’t entirely remember what happened to hers.

She reaches the bathroom and immediately plants herself on the toilet, peeing quickly. Across the way she can see Kelley’s overflowing hamper—when was the last time Kelley got around to laundry?

Now that she’s getting a closer look at it, she can see Kelley all over the bathroom. In the brands of soap and shampoo, the toothbrush precariously balanced on the side of her sink, the color of the towels hanging on the towel bar.

It was very on brand for Kelley not to even make an attempt to clean before Emily came over. But didn’t most people clean for their hookups? Emily couldn’t decide what that meant: did Kelley not care at all what Emily thought of her? Or was she just so comfortable around Emily she knew it wouldn’t matter?

And this was where Emily lost it. Where, if she thought about it too much, things didn’t fully add up. What part of what they were doing _wasn’t_ a relationship at this point? Kissing, sex, cuddling—there didn’t seem to be any rules. Any rules except not talking about their feelings, which Emily was finding it harder and harder to adhere to, especially because everything in her gut told her that maybe Kelley felt the same way.

It could be so simple to put it all out there; so easy to tell Kelley everything on her mind. And maybe she should. Maybe it was getting too hard to continue like this. Maybe the cost of not getting to love Kelley fully was outweighing the fear of losing her.

(It wasn’t, though.)

Emily gets up, wiping and flushing the toilet. She washes her hands, spotting something in the hamper: a red Stanford Kelley O’Hara jersey from what seems like probably a decade ago. She smiles, taking it and unfolding it in her hands. Then, quickly, she pulls it over her head, smiling at her reflection in the mirror.

She heads back out into the bedroom, smiling at Kelley, who has rolled over in an attempt to go back to sleep. She leans in close to her neck, letting her breath run across it.

“Miss Kelley?”

“Hmmm?” Kelley hums out, eyes still closed. Emily climbs onto the bed, throwing a leg over Kelley’s hips. Kelley, despite how tired she is, immediately rolls to put hands at Emily’s waist, steading her. She looks up at Emily, smirking when she sees what she’s wearing.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Where do you think?” Emily lifts the edge of it, sniffing. “Smells like you.”

“That’s so dirty, dude.” Kelley laughs and Emily shrugs.

“I don’t care. Smells like you.”

Kelley smiles up at her. “You wanna come down here and smell me?” Emily laughs hard at that, snorting a little, and leans down to drape herself across Kelley’s chest.

“Was that supposed to be hot?” Emily says, and Kelley raises a hand to brush Emily’s hair from her eyes.

“You’re the one wearing my dirty clothes.”

“Okay, but that’s objectively hot.”

They smile at each other, trying to keep from laughing, but eventually it’s all too much. Giggling, Emily leans in. She stops just short of kissing Kelley, and a weird beat passes before she finally just leans in, capturing Kelley’s lips. Emily’s got to get over whatever hang up she has about kissing—clearly Kelley’s totally unbothered by it, and always, always kisses back.

They make out for a while, Emily cupping Kelley’s face. After a while, Kelley pulls back.

“What time do you have to go?” Kelley says, and Emily groans against her shoulder.

“_Nooooo_ don’t be responsible you’re so sexy.” 

“One of us has to be. What time?” 

Emily looks over at Kelley’s bedside clock: 7:39am. “I mean, team breakfast is in an hour. It’s optional, technically…” she hesitates, “... but I do feel like Lindsey will give me a hard time if I miss it.” 

Kelley seems to think about this for a second. “Just say you came over and I made you breakfast? That’s not like, completely unusual for us.”

“_You_ making _me_ breakfast? I clearly make the breakfast in this relationship.” 

Emily says it quickly, not even really thinking through the implications of what she’s said until she notices Kelley turning away, presumably in search of her phone. It feels almost deliberate, the way Kelley disconnects from the conversation, and Emily’s face heats up in embarrassment. 

“You can make breakfast if you want.” Kelley says, not looking at Emily, and Emily takes a deep breath, willing herself to push through her embarrassment.

Her comment effectively shut down the giddy comfort of their conversation, and suddenly everything about the room feels foreign. Emily rolls off of Kelley, standing quickly, and finds herself feeling for the first time like maybe she doesn’t belong here, among Kelley’s things. In Kelley’s world. 

She searches quickly for her pants, suddenly embarrassed by her own nudity. She tries her best not to look hurried, willing herself to remain calm.

It’s not like she’s said anything she should really be embarrassed about. The word relationship meant many things, after all. 

(But then why does it feel like she’s done something wrong?)

“What do you want for breakfast?” Emily says, searching Kelley’s face for some type of reaction.

Kelley’s typing something on her phone, so her response isn’t immediate. “Uh… I don’t know. Maybe check what I have in the fridge?” 

Emily stands, watching Kelley scroll through her phone. After a beat, it starts to feel deliberate, the way Kelley won’t look at her, won’t acknowledge her.

Emily sighs, disappearing into the other room.

\- + - + - + -

It’s easy for Emily to lose herself in cooking. After taking careful stock of everything in Kelley’s fridge and pantry, she decides on a combo of avocado toast and sunny-side-up eggs, whipping everything up fairly quickly. 

She’s in the middle of frying the eggs when Kelley emerges from the bedroom, finally dressed. Kelley looks soft and warm in her Under Armor hoodie, and Emily desperately wants to kiss her, but restrains herself—things were still weird between them, after all.

Emily keeps to herself, focusing on the task at hand, when suddenly she feels Kelley appear behind her, hands on her hips, “Smells great.” 

Kelley leans in to kiss behind her ear, and Emily makes a face, suddenly feeling whiplash—wasn’t it Kelley that’d deliberately put distance between them? Kelley nips at her ear and Emily stifles a moan.

“Kell.” Emily says gently, stepping forward out of her arms. Her tone is firm, and despite not being able to see Kelley, Emily can feel her hesitate behind her. 

Emily considers saying something. Something about the comment she made earlier. Something about how weird it had made things between them; about how she wasn’t in the mood for anything like this right now.

(The only thing she’s in the mood for right now is telling Kelley how she feels.)

But saying any of those things would imply there was more to this relationship than Kelley clearly thought there was. It was uncomplicated kissing. And here Emily was trying to complicate it again. 

“I’m almost done with breakfast, can you get the table ready?” She says instead. She doesn’t look at Kelley, instead inspecting the eggs on the stove, and she can feel Kelley’s eyes on her, searching her face. 

“Sure.” Kelley says, walking away. She clears and sets the table, and when Emily finally looks up she’s seated, scrolling through her phone again. Emily takes Kelley’s plate and serves her, walking it back to the table. When she arrives back at the table she’s greeted by Kelley’s phone camera, and raises her eyebrows, surprised. 

“Your face.” Kelley says, laughing, showing her the video. Emily looks very stunned, and not in a cute or funny way, “Do it again.” 

Emily tries the action again, this time with a practiced smile, and Kelley records it for her followers, presumably. 

(Later, Emily will watch it and wonder why Kelley shared it at all—the domesticity of it seems sickeningly obvious to her, and she can see her own feelings for Kelley clearly reflected on her face.) 

She serves herself and sits across from Kelley, watching her eat in silence. She wonders how long they can go on like this, without at least acknowledging that there was _something _between them. She can’t think about it that long and doesn’t want to, and eventually she finds her mind drifting back to practice later today and the game tomorrow. By the time Kelley speaks, her mind has fully changed subjects. 

“So you haven’t told Lindsey?” Kelley’s words come like a shot of adrenaline, and Emily struggles not to look openly surprised.

“That I’m here right now?” 

“About us.” Kelley says without looking up from her plate. Emily stares at her from across the table, surprised. 

_About us_. Implying there was an “us” to tell Lindsey about. 

And Emily’s not really sure what Kelley wants her to say to that, so she tells the truth, “No. But it feels like she knows anyway.” 

Kelley swallows her food. For the first time this entire conversation, Kelley meets Emily’s eyes. Still, Emily finds her expression completely unreadable. 

“You and Lindsey aren’t like…” Kelley starts, and Emily’s eyes widen at the implication.

“No. What? That’s so fucking weird. We’re best friends and it’s… like not like that at all.” Emily laughs, trying to mask her nerves. This conversation is taking a turn, and she doesn’t fully understand where it’s going, “Lindsey has a boyfriend.” 

“That doesn’t mean—“ 

“It’s…it’s just not like that, okay? She’s the most important person in my life. But it’s not like that.” Emily says, and Kelley leans back in her chair. She watches Emily with a curious expression, and before she can say anything else that derails Emily’s entire life, Emily cuts in, “have you told anyone?”

The _about us_ is implied, and Emily knows it is because Kelley’s eyes drop back to her plate. 

“No.” Kelley says simply, and if she thinks that’s the end of the discussion she has another thing coming.

“Not even Alex?” 

“Of course not Alex. Can you imagine what Alex would say if she knew I was hooking up with—“ She cuts herself off, and Emily’s face burns under her gaze. She watches Kelley close her eyes, sighing, and wonders what’s going through her mind. Everything that could’ve made up the end of that sentence seems like it might be a terrible thing Alex thinks about Emily, and despite how devastating that sounds, Emily’s desperate to hear it.

“Hooking up with?” Emily prompts, unwilling to let it go, and Kelley seems to read her mind:

“Oh no, it’s not like… no, Alex likes you. Adores you, even. She’d be mad at me.” 

Emily frowns at that. 

“Have you talked to Tobin?” Kelley says, then, “because she’s been, uh, really harsh with me. She called me a couple of weeks ago and just like, laid into me. Which was super un-Tobin-like.” 

Emily shakes her head no. She can imagine what Tobin probably said and while the protectiveness is endearing, she also wants to strangle her for trying to push Kelley away.

“Alex would feel the same way.”

Something in Kelley’s voice makes Emily feel heavy. Emily stares down at her hands on the table, trying to figure out why this whole conversation is starting to feel like the end of something. She hates where this is going. She wishes she knew how to stop it. 

“We… probably shouldn’t be doing this.” Kelley says, resigned. Emily looks up at that, finding Kelley’s eyes. They sit there, eyes locked for a while, before Emily finally speaks:

“If you think you’re corrupting me… you’re not.” 

“I know—“ 

“And if all your friends are out to protect me, they don’t have to,” Emily swallows, “I’m a big girl. I make my own choices.” 

Emily can still see the hesitation in Kelley’s eyes, so she adds, “Besides, it’s not like it’s anything serious. It’s just casual. And we’ve both done that before, so… we can stop whenever we want…” she trails off, adding, “But I don’t want stupid pressure from people that don’t get it to make that choice for us. Because I like this.” 

And even though the words she just spit out felt like a knife to the gut, the soft hopeful smile on Kelley’s face makes it feel worth it. Kelley reaches out, grabbing Emily’s hand across the table. 

“I like this too.” 

Kelley stands, lifting Emily to her feet, and pulls her into a hug.

“That was so adult.” Kelley says, laughing into Emily’s shoulder, “You’re so adult.” 

“Told you I was a big girl.” Emily says, and she feels Kelley run her hands down her back, grabbing hold of her thighs and lifting Emily up off the ground. Emily settles with her legs around Kelley’s hips. 

“You’re my big girl.” Kelley pecks her on the lips. “And we’ve still got thirty minutes before you have to be anywhere.” Emily holds herself far enough back from Kelley that she can look into her eyes. 

“Do we? Sweet.” 

Kelley carries Emily back toward the bedroom, tossing her into bed like she’s the comforter, and Emily can’t help but smile as Kelley crawls up her body like she owns it, kissing her passionately.

If this is a dream, Emily never wants it to end.

\- + - + - + -

Emily’s roasted for missing breakfast. 

Hayley and Caitlin make a huge deal about the whole thing, upset that Emily was “too sleepy” (at least, per her text the night before) to take part in their viewing of Mean Girls. They’d planned to prank her at breakfast, and when she hadn’t shown she’d likely made the whole thing like 200% worse. Ellie, for her part, doesn’t seem too bothered—she makes a comment about them not needing to spend all of their time together and Caitlin and Hayley look at her like she’s grown two extra heads. 

Lindsey says nothing.

Even now, while they’re sitting next to each other on the bus to practice, Lindsey says nothing. 

It’s kinda freaking Emily out. 

“Linds.” Emily says, hoping to feign ignorance, “Linds, listen to this new song I found. I think I’m gonna make Rose choreograph a thing to it.” 

She holds up an earbud to Lindsey, who watches her with a blank expression. She doesn’t move to take the earbud, instead letting her voice drop to a whisper when she says, “Stop.” 

Emily stiffens at that, pulling the earbud back. Her heart starts beating wildly in her ears. Lindsey’s never spoken to her like that, and she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do now—gasp? Cry? She stares at the side of Lindsey’s face, confused, before dropping her gaze to her hands.

The bus pulls up to a curb, and before they know it the team is getting off. Emily still hasn’t said anything, baffled into silence. Lindsey gets off first and Emily rushes to follow her, confused and upset.

They make their way into the locker rooms of the practice field, and as soon as they’re away from Marc and the others, Emily follows Lindsey down a deserted hall. 

Like a dog about to receive punishment, Emily kind of knows what’s coming. She waits for Linds to lay into her, afraid to say something incriminating before she even knows what Lindsey’s been ruminating about. 

“I don’t want to talk to you if you’re gonna keep lying to me.” 

“Okay.” Is all Emily says. She doesn’t know what more to say. 

“Where were you last night?” Lindsey asks, and Emily feels herself stiffen. 

She should tell the truth. The truth would fix things between her and Lindsey. It could also damage things between her and Kelley. She thinks back to freckled hazel eyes and waking up in Kelley’s arms and can’t bear the thought of losing that, so she does exactly what she just agreed not to do.

“I was in my room.” She says. She hopes Tobin kept up her part of the lie.

“I came by and Tobin said you were asleep.” 

“Tobin told me.” That was true, Tobin had. “Sorry, I just was beat from earlier that day. I slept for like 15 hours.” 

The lie comes so easily that Emily almost believes it. Lindsey narrows her eyes. 

“And this morning—you went to Kelley’s for breakfast?”

“Yes?” Emily says, trying to pretend like Lindsey’s the weird one for asking about it.

“You made breakfast for her.” Lindsey says, and Emily’s getting ready to question why that clarification is necessary when Lindsey adds, “while wearing her old Stanford jersey?” 

Emily nods. She pretends to not follow Lindsey’s implication, and finds strength in playing dumb, “... that sounds like my morning. Why?” 

She can see she’s frustrating Lindsey. Lindsey, who knows her so well she can probably see this is all an act. Lindsey, who with one instagram story is able to unravel the entirety of what Emily feels for Kelley. Lindsey, who watches her now with an anger in her eyes that Emily’s never seen from her before. 

“Are you dating Kelley?”

“What?” She asks, pretending like that’s a ridiculous suggestion. 

“All the texting and FaceTime and sneaking around—are you dating her?” 

“... no?” Emily says, and that’s technically the truth, but Emily still tries to sell it all with eye contact, “Lindsey, you know us. We’re best friends. Not as close as you and I are, but like…” Emily searches for the right words, “Is that what this whole thing was about?” 

Lindsey searches her eyes, trying to decide whether to trust her. She looks down at her feet, confused.

“I’m sorry. I think I just… blew it all up in my head.” 

Emily looks at her curiously, and she expands, “I think I thought you were keeping something from me and I just like… let the idea spiral out of control. I’m… I feel kind of insane.” She takes a step back, rubbing at Emily’s shoulder. 

“I’m happy that Kelley’s being such a good friend to you. And I’m sorry I made it weird.” Lindsey laughs a little, pulling back, “feel free to tell Kelley about it. I deserve to be roasted a little.” 

Emily frowns at that. She doesn’t find any of this funny. Her insides burn white hot with the knowledge that everything Lindsey’s assumed is correct. There’s no world where this is sustainable, where Lindsey doesn’t find out. It feels like it’s only a matter of time. 

And Lindsey’s so important to her. 

She pulls Lindsey into a deep hug, closing her eyes. 

“Linds, you know I love you, right?” 

“I know.”

“You’re my best friend. You’re more my best friend than Kelley will ever be.” She says this with conviction, and feels Lindsey smile against her shoulder.

“Don’t say that.” Lindsey says, but Emily can hear the clear smile in her voice, “Okay, only say it if you mean it.”

“I mean it.”

\- + - + - + -

Emily plays really well. Like, abnormally well. 

She feels herself swiftly moving around her mark, easily able to steal and clear the ball nearly all game. With defending that automatic, she can focus on getting the ball up field to Lindsey, which she tries her best to do as often as possible. She manages a sweet cross to Caitlin right before the whistle blows for halftime that results in a kickass goal—the type that’ll be played over and over as part of this weekend’s highlight reel, and may even win Caitlin goal of the week. 

It’s the type of assist that earns her a whole bunch of attention as she makes her way back to the bench for halftime. And after the whole team has jumped on her and Marc’s given her a sort of proud little pep talk, she finds herself pulled into Catilin’s arms for a hug. 

Caitlin lifts her off the ground, spinning her, and then covers her face in kisses, making her laugh. They spin and spin like that, laughing, and when she’s finally back on solid ground she acknowledges that even amongst all this attention, her brain somehow finds room to desire attention from one specific human. A human that’s just across the field.

She spots the object of her affection sitting on the opposite bench, already watching her. But rather than making a face or waving, Kelley just immediately looks away.

_That’s weird._

Emily pushes it out of her mind, forcing herself to try to mentally prepare for the second half. She can’t let Kelley’s every whim affect her game. When did she become so reliant on the mood of another person?

During the second half, Portland plays very well. They keep the ball on Utah’s side, and Lindsey manages another two goals (one off a header!) to add to Caitlin’s earlier one. 

Near the eighty-third minute, Emily finds herself watching Kelley. Utah’s defense has had to work hard this game, and it looks like Kelley’s frustrated about it. Emily looks on as Kelley, pissed, takes an ill-advised slide tackle that results in a boot to the chest. 

Kelley goes down, breathing hard, and a medic rushes over to check her out. 

And Emily can’t help it. Despite being clear across the field from her, despite being on opposing teams, Emily rushes over to check on her. 

“You okay?” She asks when Kelley finally sees her standing above her face. Kelley reaches a tentative arm up, searching for her hand, and Emily takes her hand and squeezes.

The medics pull up Kelley’s shirt, checking her ribs, and Emily squats down beside her, holding her hand, whispering to her. She won’t even be able to recall what was said later, but that’s okay. So long as she can provide Kelley with comfort now. 

When the shock’s worn off and Kelley’s deemed okay by the medics, Emily helps her stand. Kelley gives her a grateful smile, heading back to her spot. Emily rushes back across the field. She finds herself the subject of much scrutiny—the other Thorns certainly give her a _look—_but she really can’t help what that whole interaction looked like at this point. 

The game finishes 3-0. Emily rushes through her shower and through putting on her street clothes, eager to get herself over to the Utah locker room, where she knows Kelley has medics taking a closer look at her ribs. 

Before she can make her way over there, she feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns to see Lindsey standing behind her. 

“Heading over to check on Kelley?”

Emily nods. She packs her things as she speaks, “I’m gonna help her get back to her place. That looked like it really hurt.”

It’s not an unusual thing to suggest—Kelley was often the member of the team that helped injured players get home. She’d done that for Lindsey a little over a month ago. 

“I’ll come with you.” Lindsey says, and she doesn’t leave room for Emily to say no, so Emily doesn’t. They pack up, walking out together. 

\- + - + - + -

The medics deem it pretty significant bruising, and when Kelley lifts up her shirt to show Emily, that’s what it looks like. 

(Silently, Emily wonders if the medics checked high enough to see the hickey she’d left on Kelley’s right breast. She hopes not.) 

After a long discussion about whether Kelley needed escorting back to her place (Kelley had insisted she didn’t, especially after it was clear Lindsey intended to come along too) Emily finally convinces her to let them take her home. Weirdly, hopping into the driver’s seat of Kelley’s car feels like the most domestic thing they’ve done so far, and Emily finds herself smiling a little as she starts the engine. 

She thinks back to a year ago, when having Kelley in the passenger seat and Lindsey in the back of any car would’ve been a recipe for ridiculous team antics. Now, instead, they drive in silence. 

She keeps looking over at Kelley, trying to catch her eye, but Kelley seems weirdly pensive. She catches Lindsey’s eye in the rear view mirror. Lindsey gives her a shrug and a smile, and its weirdly comforting. 

Emily won’t pretend she’s blind to the way Lindsey’s affecting their dynamic. There’s a part of her that’s on her toes, trying her best not to be any more intimate with Kelley than usual. She suspects that’s also why Kelley’s being so quiet.

But before she can find something to say, Kelley cuts in with a thought of her own:

“You played really well today.” Emily turns to look at Kelley, unsure who she means until she sees Kelley smiling back at her.

“You really did.” Lindsey says, “That cross was dope. Caitlin was ready to have your babies.” 

Emily rolls her eyes. “Caitlin would not have my babies.” 

“You’re saying you would carry the babies?” Lindsey says, teasing.

“I don’t get why there has to be babies in this scenario.” 

“Because Caitlin wants to have yours.” 

“Shut up.” 

Lindsey laughs and Emily sighs loudly and before Emily can change the subject Kelley cuts in with, “Well, it does seem like Caitlin was super into you,” Emily raises an eyebrow at her, so she follows it with, “spinning you around, covering your whole face in kisses…”

“Oh no, Cait’s just super affectionate.” Emily says, and Lindsey adds, “no one likes Sonnett that much.” 

Emily turns to glare her. 

“They were totally metaphorical babies. Signs of a job well done.” Lindsey states confidently.

“So if Sonnett sent you an amazing cross you would have her babies?” Kelley asks Lindsey, holding back a giggle.

“Oh, definitely.” Lindsey says, and the group laughs. 

\- + - + - + -

“Gotta admit, this is kind of what I expected.” Lindsey says, eying the mess as Kelley struggles to lie back in bed. 

Kelley just sort of glares. “Sorry it’s not up to your usual standards.” 

“Let’s not pretend Lindsey has standards,” Emily says, returning with an ice pack. She’s wrapped it in a kitchen towel, and before Kelley can say anything she’s taking a seat on Kelley’s bed, pulling Kelley’s shirt up and resting it against Kelley’s body. Kelley grits her teeth at the cold, letting out a hiss sound, “a little warning next time?” 

“Sorry.”

When Emily looks up at Lindsey, she finds her with her arms crossed, standing in the corner of the room. Something has changed in her eyes, and Emily gives her a curious look. Lindsey pulls out her phone, checking it.

“Everything okay?” Emily asks. Kelley looks up at Lindsey, then over at Emily with a questioning glance. 

“Yeah, just uh… something’s up with my mom. She wants me to call her.” 

Emily frowns. “You should call her.”

“I think I’m gonna take an Uber home and do it. It seems important.”

Emily stands, walking over to her, “Okay.” She holds her arms open, pulling her into a hug, “I hope everything’s okay.”

“Me too. I’ll see you later maybe?” She looks over to Kelley, still laying on her mattress, “I hope you feel better, Kell.” 

“I’ll try.” She chuckles, and it clearly hurts. 

Emily sees Lindsey out, giving her one last hug before shutting the door behind her. She walks herself back to Kelley’s room, taking a seat beside her on the bed. 

“That was weird.” Emily says, “Totally came out of nowhere.” 

Kelley reaches over, taking Emily’s hand. “Is it bad that I’m so glad that happened?” 

Emily laughs, “A little.” 

She leans over Kelley, brushing her hair out of her face. Their eyes meet, and she can see Kelley’s eyes drop to her lips. Emily leans in, kissing her gently. She kisses soft and slow, fingers still rubbing at Kelley’s temple, and she hears Kelley sigh against her. 

“Can we…?” Kelley trails off, looking into Emily’s eyes. 

“Now? You’re hurt.” 

Kelley pouts. “I’m always hurt.” She kisses up Emily’s neck, “come on, make it feel better.” 

Emily rolls her eyes. She gingerly pulls at Kelley’s shirt, rolling it slowly up her body and carefully pulling it up and over her head. She doesn’t bother with the sports bra, instead dropping lower to kiss a gentle line down her abs and toward her underwear. Before she drops any lower, she looks up and meets Kelley’s eyes, “this okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kelley gives her a warm smile, “you could never.” 

\- + - + - + -

A whole month passes.

A whole month passes, and it’s the closest to happy Emily’s ever felt.

Sure, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies: there are whole weeks where Kelley and Emily don’t see each other; whole days where they’re too busy to find a second to talk. Still, they do see each other quite a bit. Probably more than either of them expect to.

They do keep their secret. By some miracle, no one seems to suspect much.

(It might just be that no one really cares. And Emily’s okay with that too.)

But every day it gets harder and harder for Emily to conceal how she feels.

She stops wanting to.

**Portland, Three Weeks Ago:**

“What about getting clean?” Emily asks between kisses. The shower water is so hot Emily can barely see through the steam. She can’t tell if it’s the water or the kissing that’s seemingly suffocating her, and it kind of doesn’t matter. She’d bear both no matter the consequences. She wants as much of Kelley as she can get. 

Kelley steps forward, knocking Emily a little off balance. She shoves a hand greedy between Emily’s legs, rubbing at the wetness there. Emily wraps her arms around Kelley’s neck, leaning her face into her collarbone.

“Feels pretty dirty down here.” She whispers into Emily’s ear, shoving two fingers into her. Emily groans loudly. 

She feels herself collapse against Kelley, fully consumed by her pleasure. Kelley pushes in roughly, propping Emily up against the shower wall, thrusting with enough force to force Emily onto her tippy toes. Emily whines against her neck, sucking at the skin there to muffle her moans.

Kelley increases her pace, moving her other hand to find the side of Emily’s face. She steps forward, steading Emily with her hips, one hand reaching up and searching for Emily’s face as Emily rides out her pleasure. Kelley pulls Emily’s face to hers, bringing her nose to nose as she hits her climax. Emily moans into her mouth and Kelley leans in, capturing it with a kiss, smiling through the whole thing. 

It takes a while for Emily to come down. Kelley seems content with holding her under the stream of water, kissing her the side of her face and swaying a little. Emily, a little dizzy from the orgasm, yelps a little when Kelley reaches down to center, collecting her juices.

“Ah, there it is. Let’s get this clean.” Kelley brings her fingers to her mouth, licking Emily’s cum off of them. Emily laughs as she reaches down again, slightly ticklish.

“You want some?” Kelley says, offering Emily her cum-covered hand. Emily’s eyes trace the curve of Kelley’s shoulders, the bend in her waist, the softness of the skin around her breasts. She can see the laugh lines around Kelley’s eyes, and is almost overcome with an urge to kiss them.

Emily might love her.

When Emily hesitates, Kelley tilts her head, giving Emily a questioning look. Emily takes Kelley’s hand and brings it up to Kelley’s lips, and Kelley sucks her own fingers into her mouth, confused but willing to do what Emily wants. 

When she’s wiped them fully clean, Emily leans in to kiss her, tasting herself on Kelley’s lips. 

“Everything tastes better in your mouth.” Emily says, and Kelley chuckles.

“That’s the most disgustingly sweet thing I’ve ever heard.”

**FaceTime, Two Weeks Ago:**

“You don’t think we’ve traumatized our NSA agent enough?” Emily asks, and Kelley laughs. It sounds a little tinny coming from Emily’s iPhone, but they’ll take what they can get. 

“You promised.” 

Emily sighs, looking away from the screen at the room. 

This whole thing was slightly out of her comfort zone.

“Just… try?” 

“Okay.” Emily sighs again, standing. “I have to find something to prop this shit up with, hold on.” She walks over to her closet, considering objects inside it, when Kelley pipes up with a suggestion, “The shoebox.” 

“It’s too light.”

“Put shoes inside of it, dumbass.” Kelley says, and Emily nods to herself. Kelley does have a point. She loads some Adidas into her shoebox and sets it on the bed, climbing back up onto it. She props the phone up against the box, positioning the whole thing between her legs.

“Can you see me?” Emily asks.

“Yes, and you look like I just told you your dog died. Do you really not want to do this?” Kelley’s voice is gentle and kind and Emily finds herself smiling at it, “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“No, no… I wanna try.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re into it. I want to at least try to be into it before I decide it’s not my thing.” 

“Okay.” Kelley says, and she looks so kissable even on this grainy, unclear phone screen. Emily leans back against the pillows. 

“You can’t laugh at me, okay?”

“Not even when you’re funny?”

“No.”

“So you want me to be stoic? Just like, staring at you with no reaction?”

“No… you know what I mean.” 

Kelley nods warmly, “I do.” She leans in closer to the camera, “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay, I’m gonna try to be sexy but like… I’m not you.”

“That’s sweet. You are sexy, though.” Kelley says, and Emily watches on screen as she deliberately puts her hands down her pants: “I’m wet just thinking about you.”

Emily swallows. 

She removes her hat, tossing it aside. “Well, that’s the show, folks…” She tries to laugh at her own joke, but it isn’t funny. 

“Would it help if I told you what to do?” Emily nods and Kelley continues, “Okay. Well, um, let’s start slow. Remove your hoodie, but do it slowly.”

“That’s the sexiest sentence ever uttered in the history of man.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Kelley says, laughing. Emily pulls her hoodie up and over herself letting it catch her shirt and show off her abs. 

“There they are.” Kelley says, giving her fingers a chef’s kiss. Emily covers them back up. Kelley groans.

“Use your words.”

“Fine—”

**Dallas, Yesterday: **

“Stop wiggling.” 

This week, by chance, the national team had made them roommates. They were taking full advantage. 

“Make me.”

They’re soaking in a large hotel bath. Emily wiggles back against Kelley, annoying her further. Kelley’s fingers find her center quickly and Emily stiffens.

“Don’t test me.”

Kelley rubs a little at the wetness there and Emily leans back against her, sliding down so she can rest a head on Kelley’s shoulder. Kelley fingers her gently, and Emily bucks her hips, seeking more pressure.

“_Oh my god_, you’re so fucking wiggly.”

**Dallas, Today: **

Emily wakes up against Kelley’s chest. Even in sleep Kelley has an arm around her, holding her steady.

Emily has never felt so safe in her life.

She knows before she even opens her eyes that today’s the day. The turning point for their realtionship. She can feel it in the warmth of Kelley’s skin, the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the rhythmic beat of her heart.

She can’t do this anymore.

She’s can’t pretend like waking up in Kelley’s arms isn’t exactly what she’s always wanted. And more importantly, she was starting to think it was Kelley wanted, too.

No, they hadn’t talked about it. More than anything it was a hunch—a feeling Emily had sometimes.

Kelley was so tender with her. So different from how she’d been before. So different from how Emily has seen her behave with anyone else. Even in public, around their teammates, Kelley seemed to have a fondness for Emily that never left. A fondness that Emily returned wholeheartedly. She was so focused on Emily being safe and happy and having a good time that Emily often wondered how much of that was fueled by unnecessary guilt that lingered from suggesting they hook up in the first place. Kelley always seemed to act like she was taking advantage of something she couldn’t and shouldn’t have. 

And, well, Emily was ready to tell Kelley she could have her. If she wanted to.

Emily feels Kelley stir beside her. She’s not fully sure Kelley’s awake until she feels her hand sneak down to squeeze her ass. She smiles a little against Kelley’s collarbone, but otherwise doesn’t move or acknowledge Kelley’s hand.

“Mornin’” Kelley says, kissing the side of her head, “doing some heavy thinking?”

And rather than answer, Emily turns to look at Kelley. She places a hand on Kelley’s chest, leaning in to kiss her deeply. She swallows Kelley’s surprise in her kiss, trying her best to channel all of her passion into it, hoping Kelley will feel it and just _know_.

They kiss for a long while. More than they usually allow themselves to. Emily carefully explores her mouth, running her other hand through Kelley’s hair.

When she pulls back, she sees the pure bliss in Kelley’s expression; the way that Kelley’s eyes crinkle at the edges. She holds herself up on her elbow, looking down at Kelley. They stare at each other, just smiling for a while, and just as Kelley opens her mouth to say something, they hear a knock on the door that connects their suite to Alex’s.

“Kell? Open up.”

Kelley pushes up quickly, climbing out of one bed (the bed they shared) and throwing herself at the other. She pulls the covers back, messing up the pillows before stumbling back toward the door.

Emily, for her part, just stays in bed. Alex is lucky they’re both clothed, as far as she’s concerned.

“Kell?”

“Coming!”

Kelley grabs the door, and before she can invite Alex in Alex is pushing her way inside.

“I need your opinion on this.” She gestures down to what she’s wearing—a dress for an award show that’s coming up. Before Kelley can say anything, Emily cuts in with: “You look like a peacock.”

“Shut up.”

“A pretty peacock.”

Alex glares at Emily, and then turns back to Kelley, confused.

“You let the twerp take the bed by the window?”

“Yeah?” Kelley says, raising an eyebrow like Alex is the weird one for asking about it.

“Last time we roomed together you literally threatened to fight me to the death over it.” Alex tells her, staring over at Emily, who grows more and more uncomfortable under her gaze.

“You’ve really gotta stop spoiling this kid, Kell. It’s getting weird.”

Emily looks up at Kelley, trying to meet her gaze, but Kelley keeps her eyes trained on Alex.

“I don’t spoil her.” She says, and Emily almost snorts at that.

“Whatever. I don’t care. Help me pick stuff.”

Kelley pouts. Her eyes flicker to Emily, who she can see laughing at her, and she sticks out her tongue. Alex drags her away, briefing her on possible outfits, and Kelley throws one last look over her shoulder, catching Emily’s eye.

She winks.

Emily drops back into the pillows, smiling like a dork.

\- + - + - + -

The game goes as expected, which is to say well. Christen scores two goals (one off an assist from Tobin!) and Emily subs on for Kelley roughly 78 minutes in. Mal gets injured in the last fifteen minutes, which really puts a damper on the celebrations. 

But Kelley’s eager to take their celebration back to their room, anyway. Emily can see it in Kelley’s expression, in the way she keeps looking over at Emily, trying to gauge where she is in the getting ready process. 

Emily can feel herself being watched. She deliberately slows her actions, stripping carefully, taking time to fold her clothes after, trying to look innocent. She shoots a glance at Kelley, who she catches with her mouth slightly agape. She winks. 

And really, she should know better. Kelley looks frustrated and while Emily would love to pretend that she has no idea what she’s doing to Kelley, she totally does. This dynamic between them kept leading to sloppy, reckless behavior. Reckless behavior that was bound to get them caught. 

(It was also insanely hot. But that was beside the point.)

Standing, Emily wraps a towel around herself and grabs her shower things. She smirks a little, catching Kelley’s eye on her way into the showers. Kelley’s eyes watch her with unmasked want, and Emily almost decides to fuck it all and drag Kelley into the showers with her. 

(She doesn’t—that would be insane—but she thinks about it enough to get hot and bothered.) 

The showers are empty when Emily gets to them, and without hesitation she picks the one closest to her, drops her things on a stool, and turns the dial. She wants to be out of here as quick as possible; to get home and find out what Kelley has in store for her. She can feel Kelley teetering on edge of doing something reckless and she doesn’t want to be around the team when it happens. 

She’s only just gotten under the stream of water when it happens—she’s pinned up against the shower wall, hands at her sides. She feels more than sees Kelley against her, hips shoving hers back into the wall, one leg slotting itself between Emily’s to rub achingly at her center. 

Kelley's still clothed—clad in just a sports bra and her game shorts—and doesn’t seem to care at all when she captures Emily’s lips in a searing kiss under the shower stream. The kiss is rough; violent enough that Emily has to move her hands to Kelley’s hips. Kelley moves her leg, rocking it against Emily’s core, pushing Emily to moan a little, and then leans over to nip at Emily’s ear. She bites harder than Emily expects, and when Emily turns to look at her she’s already pulled back, leaving Emily naked, vulnerable, and very, very hot and bothered against the shower wall.

“Miss Kelley—“ She says, and Kelley cuts her off with a finger to her lips. 

“Later.” She says, smirking and walking away. She turns and gives Emily one last look before returning to the locker room, and Emily groans to herself. 

“Fuck.” 

Emily finishes showering. Others eventually join her—first Becky, then eventually Lindsey, Abby, and Alex. Emily chooses the moment Kelley enters the showers to take her leave, throwing one last smirk over her shoulder at Kelley, who jokingly pouts. 

Emily pulls on her street clothes, distracted. She rushes through the motions, unwilling to talk to anyone, desperate to get back to her hotel room where she knows Kelley will finish what she’s started. 

Where Emily will finally tell Kelley how she feels. 

She had made the decision earlier that day—to tell Kelley after the game—but now, with that moment so close, she can feel her nerves setting in. 

She wants Kelley more than anything. More than any game, any trophy. More than any girl before her.

Sam and Rose try to engage Emily in conversation to no avail. Rose even goes so far as to try to show Emily new choreography, but Emily can’t concentrate on it. Not when her head is elsewhere. Before Emily can just up and leave, Lindsey takes a seat beside her on the bench, watching her with a curious expression.

“In a rush?”

Emily hesitates, “No.” She laces up a shoe.

“You look like you’re in a rush.” Lindsey smiles, leaning closer, “you and Kelley have special plans?” 

Dumbfounded, Emily goes still. Everything must be written all over her face, because Lindsey’s smile brightens. 

“No.” Emily says, and somehow that denial sounds like an admission.

And Lindsey just looks at her, smirk apparent. Emily can feel her heart go still in her chest. 

“It’s okay dude, I know.”

Emily frowns. She looks around the lockers, watching her teammates change, joke, and converse. She’s overcome with a weird sinking feeling, and feels her face heat up. 

Everything’s about to change. 

She looks back at Lindsey and sighs, “Is it obvious?”

And Lindsey squeals a little. It’s quiet, but she reaches forward and grabs Emily’s hand, squeezing it, smiling giddily. But Emily can’t share her excitement. She’s instead overcome by a sense of dread: if Lindsey knows, it’s only a matter of time until everyone does. 

“Kinda.” Lindsey tells her, “I’ve sort of known for a while.” 

Emily’s mind is racing—_how long is a while? _

“But I didn’t actually like, _know_ know until just now. That shower kiss was—“ she hums, raising her fingers to her lips in a chef’s kiss.

And Emily is so unused to talking about how she feels about Kelley that nearly any mention of it causes her heart to race. She can feel her face heating up, her hands sweating. Lindsey wants to dish about this hook up like it’s anyone else, like the person they’re talking about isn’t the most important person in Emily’s world. Emily’s not sure she can.

“You saw that?” They’re whispering now, and Emily is looking around, trying to find a place where she and Lindsey can talk in private.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever _unsee_ that.” 

“Shut up.”

Emily stands, pulling Lindsey up and dragging her by the arm toward the door to the sauna. She catches Kelley’s eye in the process, and Kelley gives her a questioning look. 

(She can’t deal with Kelley right now.)

Emily shuts the door and gets right down to business, “Linds, you can’t tell anyone.”

“I haven’t. Why would I start now?” 

“I don’t know. You just can’t.”

Lindsey looks confused by that. “I mean it’s cute to have a secret relationship for a while but this has been going on for like, what, like months? When are you guys gonna tell people?”

“We’re not in a relationship Linds. We’re just hooking up.” 

And Lindsey actually laughs at that, “Bullshit. Look at you. You’re head over heels for her!” 

“You don’t think I know that?” She hears tears catch in her throat as she says it, and suddenly Lindsey’s entire expression changes.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” 

“This is why you didn’t tell me.”

“No shit.” 

“Sonny, that’s… she doesn’t know?” 

“I’m gonna tell her today. When we get back to the hotel.”

Lindsey sits, considering that. “Fuck.”

Emily doesn’t really have anything to say to that so she sits too. They’re lucky the sauna’s off, but Emily kind of wishes it was on. She wishes she could sweat out this entire conversation. 

“What are you going to say?” Lindsey seems hesitant, and it doesn’t fill Emily with confidence. She clears her throat, trying to find the right words:

“I don’t know. That I love her, maybe.”

“You love her?” Lindsey sounds surprised even though Emily feels like they just fucking established this. 

“Maybe.”

“You can’t maybe love someone.” And Lindsey’s right. So fucking right. Fuck that. 

Emily slouches against her seat. A long pensive beat passes. 

“This is big, Son. Like really big.” 

“I know,” Emily says. She lifts her gaze to meet Lindsey’s eyes, and finds Lindsey giving her the craziest look—one she swears she’s never seen before. Lindsey smiles and Emily can’t help but smile sadly, too. 

“I… It’s weird but like, I’m kind of proud of you.” Lindsey says, scooting so they’re sitting flush against each other. Emily laughs, and Lindsey cuts her off, continuing her thought, “No, I’m serious. Like, I wasn’t sure you’d ever actually open up to the idea of being with someone for real. Actually dating, you know?” 

Emily pulls back to look at her. She nods, trying to keep from crying. 

“Being in love looks so good on you, Sonny.” Emily smiles at that, burying her head in Lindsey’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s okay.” Lindsey says, “I got over it a while ago.”

She nudges Emily’s shoulder with her own, “You wanna know when I figured it out?” 

Emily rolls her eyes. She smiles, though, and Lindsey takes that as permission to continue. 

“When we took Kelley home after the game in Utah. The one where she got hurt?” And Emily knows the exact one, remembers it like it was yesterday. 

“When we got to her place, your underwear was on her bedroom floor. The weird pair with the hearts?” And Emily shuts her eyes, pushing her face into Lindsey’s shoulder, trying to mask her embarrassment. 

That pair of underwear was _still_ at Kelley’s. She knew because Kelley had found them, showed them to Emily over FaceTime and, well… 

… that’s a memory for a different moment.

“That’s why you left so quickly?” 

“Well, I figured you guys didn’t have a lot of time together…” 

Emily lifts her head, meeting Lindsey’s gaze. She opens her arms for a hug and Lindsey pulls her in. They stay like that for a while.

“Do you think…” Emily trails off, scared to actually ask. 

“...that she loves you back?” Lindsey pauses, thinking about it. 

“I don’t know.” 

Emily laughs bitterly. 

“I can’t imagine how she doesn’t, Sonnett.” Lindsey says, holding her tighter, “she’d have to be an idiot not to.”

They lie against each other like that for a while. Emily lets Lindsey’s pulse guide hers back to normal. Lindsey rubs at her back, trying to comfort her.

“It’ll be okay. No matter what, it’ll be okay.” 

\- + - + - + -

It’s weird when they get back. 

She knows Kelley can tell, because she puts on her soft voice, the one she uses when she’s trying to ease Emily into something new: “Everything okay?”

They’ve just walked through the door of their shared room and Kelley’s got a hand on Emily’s back. She’s walking Emily back toward the bed, but she can tell something’s up. And it’s not like Emily’s doing anything to hide it—her head is all over the place. Thirty minutes ago Kelley had her pinned against a wall with their friends in the next room and now Emily’s brain can’t even fathom the prospect of sex: she has to tell Kelley. Tell Kelley that Lindsey knows. 

Tell Kelley how she feels. 

Emily takes a seat on the bed and Kelley sits beside her, wrapping an arm around her and resting a hand on her waist. 

“Em?” Kelley says, and Emily rests her head on her shoulder. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” she says, and the words do weirdly bring her some comfort. 

“What happened with Lindsey?” 

“Nothing.” She says, and then sighs and decides that won’t cut it, “we’re fine. She just had something she wanted to tell me.” 

Kelley leans in, kissing Emily’s neck lightly. She knows Kelley’s still horny. She won’t push Emily if Emily definitely doesn’t want to mess around, but she’s doing her best to carefully, subtly make her desires known. 

(And Emily’s not _not_ down for sex.)

Emily leans, letting Kelley have better access to her neck. “What’d she want to talk about?” Kelley asks, and it takes a full second for Emily to remember that she lied, but eventually she says, “Nothing important.”

Kelley keeps kissing her neck, pushing her shirt aside to nip at her collarbone. She reaches a hand down, grabbing Emily’s. She must feel how sticky they are, because she immediately pulls back, raising an eyebrow.

“Rose had RingPops.” Emily says, like that explains everything. Kelley gives her a look.

“Go wash your hands.” 

“It’s not like I’m using them.”

Kelley laughs, “Bold of you to assume you won’t be.” She pats Emily’s thigh, “Go.”

Silently, Emily decides she’ll tell Kelley after the sex. Get her off, then get into the hard stuff. 

She walks back toward the sink, turning it on and grabbing the soap. Mid-wash, she feels Kelley come up behind her, using her hips to shove Emily into the sink.

And Emily should’ve really seen this coming.

Kelley kisses Emily’s neck, and Emily brings a wet hand to the side of Kelley’s face, brushing at her cheekbone, leaning into her touch. She looks in the mirror and finds Kelley staring back at her, hunger in her eyes. 

Kelley backs them both off the counter, running a hand down Emily’s stomach. She shoves Emily’s pants down quickly, and as Emily steps out of them Kelley slips her hand into Emily’s underwear, fingers brushing against the sensitive skin there.

Emily hisses, “Your hands are cold.” 

Kelley pays her no mind, shifting her hand so she can rub at Emily’s clit.

“Legs apart.” Kelley says, and Emily widens her stance immediately.

Kelley stops kissing Emily’s neck, pulling Emily closer. She rubs almost aimlessly now, and Emily tries to let herself enjoy it. She straightens up, meeting Kelley’s eyes in the mirror. Kelley moves to rest the side of her face against Emily’s as she fucks her, and Emily sighs happily.

God, she loves this woman.

“You’re so small.” Emily says, before she can stop herself. 

“Shut up.” 

“Are you standing on your tippy toes right now?” Kelley gives Emily a look and Emily bursts out laughing. 

“So little.” 

“Shut. Up.” Kelley shoves two fingers in her, causing Emily to gasp.

Emily braces herself against the counter. Kelley pushes her hips flush against Emily’s ass, applying pressure, and Emily’s breath hitches. She starts a brutal pace, and they both get lost in it, still making eye contact in the mirror.

They’re so lost in it, in fact, that they don’t hear the door to Alex’s suite open until there’s an audible gasp.

Emily turns to see Alex and Allie in the doorway, faces frozen in shock.

_Fuck. _


	4. i've got a bad habit (but loving you is the worst one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellllllllo time for an update finally
> 
> chapter title from "bad habit" by your smith
> 
> lots of sad so'hara feels with a side of talex and a hint of soran, for good measure. oh, also a lot of sam mewis. we all need more sam mewis in our lives.
> 
> i'm sorry this cliffhanger is worse than the last
> 
> you've been warned.
> 
> come hate me in the comments!

Emily wants to die.

She’s hastily pulling her pants up, face red, eyes on the floor. Her hands are shaking a little, and her breaths come out short and unsteady. Alex is saying something and Emily can’t focus on it. Can’t even process it. Her mind is racing.

And Kelley…

Kelley’s just standing there. Hovering behind Emily, staring at her.

If Emily looked up, she knows she’d find Kelley’s gaze immediately. She’s not sure what she’d see her eyes—worry, probably. Pity? Regret?

“Kell.” Alex says, and it has a bit of an edge to it.

Kelley hasn’t said a word since they got here.

“_Kell_.” Alex says again, prompting, and rather than answering her Kelley takes a step in front of her, shielding Emily from her, still facing Emily.

“Are you… are you okay?” Kelley squeaks out. It’s the meekest Emily’s ever heard her sound and for a second she almost looks up at her, wanting to ask the same thing in return. Instead, she nods, swallows her tears, and turns the other way.

She takes a few steps until she reaches the wall, sinking down against it until she’s seated on the floor. Hands at her temples, she tries to breathe.

Allie starts to move toward her, crouching down, but before she can get too close to Emily Kelley’s taking a step between them.

“What is this?” Alex says to Kelley, and then turns to Emily, who won’t look up.

“Sonnett… did Kelley… are you…” She pauses, unable to articulate herself, “…was that okay with you?“

“_Seriously_, Alex—?“

“You can’t blame me for asking, Kelley. Look at her.”

“You _know_ me. I would never—“ Kelley’s offense is evident in her tone and the fact that Alex could even suggest that prompts Emily to jump in way before she’s ready to say anything.

“She didn’t… ” Emily cuts Kelley off and then trails off, unsure what she was going to say. The room turns to look at her. She shuts her eyes.

She should tell them it’s just sex. That they’ve been hooking up.

But that’s not what it is anymore. She wouldn’t be sitting here gutted on the floor if it was. And she’s not sure she can lie about it.

Finally, she looks up. Her eyes meet Kelley’s and for a moment it’s just them.

Kelley’s eyes look heavy with emotion, and her face, always expressive, betrays her fear. And Emily knows immediately as she meets her eyes that this whole thing is up to Kelley—she’ll accept whatever Kelley tells them.

But in this moment, with her eyes, she begs. She begs Kelley to see what’s right in front of her. To admit that this matters.

Something flickers in Kelley’s eyes, and for a second Emily thinks Kelley knows what she wants. But then Kelley bites her lip, turning back to her friends.

“We’ve been hooking up,” she pauses, sighing, “for a few months.”

“Hooking up?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, Alex. Sex, no feelings.” Kelley says, her tone harsh.

And she was expecting it, but Emily’s blood still runs hot with embarrassment. Suddenly she feels like she’s suffocating.

She can’t be here anymore.

Allie and Alex are asking follow up questions and Emily’s trying not to cry. She stands quickly, shaky on her feet, and grabs her hat off the counter to cover her tear-stained face.

Kelley whips around to face her, and Emily immediately looks away.

“Em.” She says, following as Emily makes her way to the door.

“Em, where are you going?” She reaches out, grabbing Emily’s arm.

Emily turns to face her for the second time. This time whatever Kelley can see in her eyes hurts her: Emily can feel it in the way her grip loosens, in the way her jaw drops a little.

“I have to go.” Is all she says.

Emily gently pulls her arm back, giving Kelley one last look before walking out the door.

\- + - + - + -

Emily doesn’t know where she’s going.

She’s rushing through an empty hotel hallway barefoot, tears blurring her vision. She can’t remember the last time she cried this much.

Her heart hammers away in her ears, reminding her how scared she is.

Scared that everyone she knows will know what happened. Scared that someone will find her now, sobbing in this hallway, and demand to know what’s wrong.

Scared that that was the last time she and Kelley would ever be… whatever they were. That she’ll never move on. That whatever that was—love or not—is as real as it’ll ever get for her.

She needs to find Lindsey.

Lindsey… what was her room number again?

\- + - + - + -

It doesn’t even occur to Emily until she’s knocking on the door that Lindsey might not be home. She waits almost three seconds in painful agony, trying, desperately, to conceive of a plan B when there isn’t even really a plan A, and then the door opens to Sam Mewis in a Korean sheet mask.

And maybe on another day Emily would’ve laughed at the way Sam’s face falling caused the mask to sort of… fall with it. But before she can even think to find it funny she’s crying again. The tears return in full force, and Sam doesn’t even question her, just pulls her into the room with an arm around her shoulders and shuts the door behind her.

The room is a mess. Emily nearly trips over a shoe on her way in, not fully paying attention. An episode of Schitt’s Creek is paused on the TV, and a bag of half eaten chips sits in the middle of the blanket nest that Emily assumes is Sam’s bed.

Sam walks Emily to the bed, sitting her down, and then takes a seat across from her on the bed that’s presumably Lindsey’s.

“What’s wrong?”

Emily tries, once, to say something, but whatever it is stuck in her throat. She can’t breathe. Can’t speak. Couldn’t possibly articulate.

She lifts her gaze to meet Sam’s and finds herself once again face-to-face with a sheet mask. Sam seems to realize this too, and reaches up to readjust it. And despite it all, Emily finds herself laughing a little.

“I should just take it off.” Sam says, laughing too. She reaches up, peeling it off and tossing it in the trash. She smiles brightly then, as though hoping to inspire the same smile in Emily, but Emily’s face falls.

Sam’s smile dims.

“What can I do?”

\- + - + - + -

They’re cuddling on the bed, waiting for Lindsey to return Sam’s texts.

And bless Sam, honestly, because she hasn’t asked a single question about what happened other than her first. Instead, she’d just taken Emily into her arms and spooned her, telling her the dumbest knock knock jokes she could think of off the top of her head.

“Knock knock.”

And Emily’s not as stricken with dread as she once was.

“Who’s there?”

The shock has subsided and somehow cleared the way for… numbness?

“Tank.”

She doesn’t know anything about human biology, really, but whatever’s flowing through her bloodstream right now feels suspiciously similar to whatever must flow through her when she loses the final game in a tournament. She’s gutted, sure, but also exhausted. Unable to process the weight of it. And at least somewhat unwilling to.

“Tank who?”

“You’re welcome.”

Emily rolls her eyes, groaning a little.

“That one was painful.”

“But it was good, right?”

“Painful.”

The phone buzzes on the nightstand. Sam reaches over Emily to grab it, scrolling through a text. Emily squirms impatiently.

“Is it Lindsey? What’d she say?”

Sam puts the phone back down on the nightstand without answering the text.

“It wasn’t Lindsey.”

The phone buzzes a few more times. Emily reaches over before she can stop herself, but Sam beats her to it.

“No, don’t.” Sam says, holding the phone out of Emily’s reach. She looks at the phone with distaste, “actually…”

Sam stands, walking over and tossing her phone in the trash.

“Sam—“

“I’ll get it later. Just, uh… ” Sam says, walking back to the bed and climbing in to wrap herself around Emily, “We don’t need that right now.”

It’s a vague confirmation of something Emily already knew in her gut.

“People know, huh?”

Sam doesn’t answer. She just pulls Emily closer.

They stay like that for a while—Sam wrapped around Emily, both physically and emotionally shielding her from the world—until the door clicks. Lindsey barrels through the door, rushing in a way that makes it obvious she knows how Emily’s night has gone; knows Emily’s in that room, waiting for her.

She slams the door behind her and immediately their eyes meet.

(And Emily thought she was all cried out, but the tears are back with a vengeance.)

Lindsey rushes over, not even bothering to take her shoes off before climbing into bed on the other side of Emily.

“I’m so sorry.” Is all Lindsey says, face pressed in close to Emily’s. Emily shuts her eyes and Lindsey lifts a hand to her cheek, rubbing at the skin there until Emily opens them again.

“You’re gonna be okay. I don’t know what happened, but you’re gonna be okay.”

And for a second, lying there in both Lindsey and Sam’s arms, it almost feels true.

\- + - + - + -

Emily doesn’t sleep.

She stares at the ceiling instead, listening to the gentle sounds of Sam and Lindsey’s breathing and trying her best to do anything but think about Kelley. She tries breathing exercises, mindfulness bullshit, even sobbing angrily…

Nothing works.

At 5 am she gets up, takes some clothes from Lindsey’s suitcase, and decides to shower.

And standing in the hotel shower—one that directly mirrors the one she used yesterday, with one key difference—makes Emily want to scream. She can still picture what it feels like to be the Emily from yesterday; the one that stood under the stream waiting for Kelley to join her, that pinned her against the first surfaces she could find when she did.

She can still feel Kelley’s breath on her neck as massages her own scalp, can still feel Kelley’s hands on her waist as though she’s right behind her, pulling her in, holding her there.

(Is this something you recover from? Almost having the thing you think you’ve always wanted?)

She turns the heat up until the water burns her.

\- + - + - + -

“Hey.”

Emily feels a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the elevator and into a little inlet with a window that overlooks the city below.

“Hey, look at me.” Emily looks up, directing her gaze at Lindsey, who places both hands on both of Emily’s shoulders and holds her there like she’s hyping her up for a game.

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened.” Emily frowns, looking down, and Lindsey lifts her chin again, “Hey, it’s okay. I know enough to get the gist.”

Lindsey pauses then, as though thinking through her words very carefully, and Emily bites her lip, unsure where this is going. There’s an air to Lindsey that feels hardened and defensive today—it feels like even Emily couldn’t make her make her laugh—and while Emily can tell it’s not directed at her, she feels general unease at the thought of Lindsey getting anywhere near Kelley.

(Kelley, who still doesn’t know how Emily feels.)

“If you need to me to say anything to her—“ Lindsey starts, and Emily immediately cuts in: “I don’t.”

“I wouldn’t, like, say anything about—“

“Please don’t say anything.”

Lindsey takes pause at that. “So what, we pretend like nothing’s wrong?”

“She doesn’t know, Linds.”

Lindsey’s eyes widen, “Still? I thought you said you were going to—“

“I didn’t get the chance.”

They stand like that in silence for a beat, Lindsey just shaking her head in the general direction of the floor. Emily gives her a chance to wrap her head around that, watching her eyes go through an entire emotional journey before she’s finally on the same page as Emily.

“You can’t just—“

“She didn’t ask for me to feel this way, Linds. If she doesn’t feel the same way, I have to respect that. I can’t just be mad at her.”

“Sure you can. She took advantage of how you felt.”

“She didn’t know,” Emily says, resigned. “Still doesn’t.”

Lindsey pulls back, seemingly accepting that. She takes a deep breath as though to quell her anger, and then hooks her arm through Emily’s.

“You’re a better person than they give you credit for, Sonny.”

Emily doesn’t know what to say to that. They make their way down the hall toward the conference room the hotel has blocked off for breakfast, and as they turn the corner, Lindsey takes Emily’s hand in hers, squeezing.

“I’m with you. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

\- + - + - + -

They’re about halfway down the buffet line when Kelley appears.

And despite facing the wrong direction, having her hands full, and trying her best to block out any thought or mention of Kelley, Emily still spots her immediately. Like magnets drawn together, Emily looks up just as Kelley’s eyes find hers.

(Emily’s heart hiccups.)

(Is this how she dies?)

Kelley’s carrying one of Emily’s duffles and looking like she got about as much sleep as Emily did, which is really saying something. Her hair is in an unkempt ponytail and she’s wearing just the laziest combination of clothing: a ratty old sweatshirt, Royals shorts, socks and Berks. Probably the most notable thing about Kelley’s arrival—at least to Emily, who knows her well—is that she arrives alone. No Alex. No Allie. No Tobin. No Christen.

And the moment their eyes meet Emily knows Kelley’s come to seek her out. She takes a look around the room, noting how multiple people have turned their way, as though hoping to get insight into the drama. She turns back to Kelley just as Kelley starts walking toward her, but before either of them can say anything, Lindsey’s placing herself between them.

“Let’s go sit down,” Lindsey says, placing her hand on Emily’s back and gently leading her away from Kelley, who watches them go with a frown.

“That’s my stuff.” Emily says under her breath. Lindsey just shushes her politely.

They take a seat, and Emily notes that Alex and Allie are just down the table from them talking in quiet whispers. Unable to stop herself, Emily turns to watch Kelley gently set the duffle bag in the corner and start to serve herself. There’s a group of people at a table beside them that seem to be eyeing Kelley and Emily with interest, but when Emily tries to look over at them, Lindsey just blocks Emily’s view with her body.

Eventually Sam takes a seat on Emily’s other side, showing them some horrible meme Pat sent her and telling a semi-distracting story about her sister’s girlfriend’s dog. It’s still not enough to keep Emily from noticing that Kelley deliberately takes a seat far from where Alex and Allie are.

She watches Kelley eat with Crystal, Rose, and Julie. Watches her laugh half-heartedly at jokes. Watches her when she knows she shouldn’t be watching her. Watches her until Kelley inevitably looks up and their eyes meet.

Emily immediately drops her gaze to her plate, cursing herself out in her head, but it’s too late. She hears more than watches Kelley stand from where she’s seated, as though suddenly emboldened by the eye contact, and she can’t even help it—her heart begins racing.

Kelley manages to place her hand on Emily’s shoulder before Lindsey can turn and glare her away.

“Hey,” she says, and Emily swears just the word causes goose bumps to appear on her arms, “can we talk?”

“We’re eating.” Lindsey says, and it has some bite to it. Emily doesn’t look at Lindsey, can’t look at Kelley—she pauses, thinking about it, and Kelley keeps her hand right where it is. Emily can feel her heart beating in her ears.

“Seriously Kell, we’re eating.” Emily can see the insistence for what it is—Lindsey’s giving Emily an out Emily’s not even sure she wants—and her eyes snap to Lindsey’s, begging for her understanding. Lindsey shakes her head. Emily sighs and starts to stand regardless.

Might as well get it over with now.

They walk to the edge of the room together—Emily staring straight ahead, Kelley staring at Emily—and Emily reminds herself to breathe. Whatever the outcome of what is said here, Emily _will_ survive.

“I, uh, packed one of your bags for you. In case you wanted to stay with Lindsey. Your phone and charger are in there. I also packed you some shoes… since you left without them.”

Emily looks down at the duffle. The gesture is kind but has only managed to make Emily feel like an emotional, pathetic bitch. Literally all that had happened here was that people found out about their… _arrangement_. What right did Emily even have to be acting like she was broken up with?

(If Kelley didn’t know how she felt before, it must be obvious now.)

“Thanks.”

“I’m also, uh, sorry.”

_What for?_ Emily thinks bitterly, berating herself once again for blowing this entire situation out of proportion.

“I didn’t mean for it all to go down that way. I’m sorry about Alex and Allie and… well, I guess everyone found out and spoiled our fun.” Kelley says, and a person who knows her less well might find her tone causal, but Emily can tell from the way her voice wavers how unsure she is of her words.

“I totally get if you want to end it here.”

Emily’s eyes widen involuntarily then—it hadn’t even occurred to her that they could still choose to sleep together, and the thought is actually so panic-inducing that she blurts out, “We should.”

Kelley lets that hang between them for a beat before letting out a hollow, bitter half-laugh, “Yeah, I had a feeling.”

She looks down at her feet and Emily finds herself looking over at the group. A few curious eyes watch their interaction, and Emily suddenly feels incredibly self-conscious, wanting to end this interaction as quickly as possible.

“Is that it?” Emily says, and it comes out harsher than she intends, but has the desired effect: Kelley seems to understand that their time is limited.

“I…” And Emily’s eyes keep drifting over Kelley’s shoulder, watching everyone else. She wonders how Kelley’s managing to block it all out, managing to remain solely focused on Emily.

(Her brain fills in an answer: _Kelley only has eyes for you_.)

(She shoves that thought down, swallowing it like a bitter pill.)

“Are we okay?” Kelley asks, and Emily freezes.

“You left in such a rush yesterday and I just… feel like maybe we’re not on the same page. Alex said some stuff and, uh, well… made me realize that no matter what we are… my priority is you. You and our friendship.”

She reaches over, touching Emily’s forearm gently, “So are we okay?”

Emily eyes are on Kelley’s hand, looking at the familiar texture of her skin, the shape of her nails, the gentle curve of her fingers as they rest lightly on Emily’s forearm.

“We’re okay.” She says.

“You sure?” And everything, from Kelley’s tone, to her body language, to the way her hand encircles Emily’s wrist, make it clear that Kelley wants Emily to look up and say it to her face, but Emily’s not sure she can. It’s like Kelley’s the sun and just looking at her would be blinding—the whole thought feels like nails on a chalkboard.

(She can’t look someone in the eye and lie to them.)

“We’re okay.” She says, this time more firmly, and Kelley drops her wrist.

“Okay.”

\- + - + - + -

Later, back in Sam and Lindsey’s room, Emily digs through the duffle, examining its contents. Kelley had been thorough in her packing, and had even gone so far as to think about things like medications, chargers, and toothpaste.

Lindsey and Sam sit on the bed behind Emily, watching her look through the duffle.

“It was nice of her to do that for you.” Sam says, and Lindsey turns to glare at her. “What, we can’t acknowledge something nice?”

“She wouldn’t have had to pack a bag in the first place if she’d just loved Sonnett back.”

Emily rolls her eyes, “It doesn’t work like that.”

“It could have.”

“Geez, Lindsey. You make protective look super unreasonable.” Sam says, laughing a little, and Lindsey crosses her arms to pout.

“Dasani’s too good for this bullshit and I should get to beat up Kelley if I want to.”

“She’s joking.” Emily says, because Lindsey sounds very serious.

“Oh, I know.” Sam laughs, and the whole exchange just makes Lindsey frown even more, pissed off.

“It’s kind of sweet, actually.” Emily says, standing and moving to take a precarious seat on Lindsey’s lap, “The Great Horan, my protector.” She lays a hand on Lindsey’s chest, leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek, and Sam bursts out laughing.

“Fuck off, Sonnett.” Lindsey pushes Emily off her lap, sending her to the floor. Sam and Emily keep laughing, undeterred by the display of violence.

“You know. It wouldn’t have to be like this if you just loved Sonnett back.” Sam says, cracking up.

“Fuck. All the way. Off.”

Later, once the laughter’s died down, Emily returns to the bag, digging through it only to find something that makes her heart sink all over again.

She turns to Lindsey, who’s half watching a game, holding up the offending item: a pair of red Stanford shorts, the number 19 emblazoned on the leg.

“She gave you a pair of shorts?”

Emily face falls. “No. I stole them like a month ago. She must’ve seen them in here and just… let me keep them.”

There’s a long beat of silence before Sam says, “Okay, you have to admit: that’s pretty sweet.”

Lindsey throws a pillow at her.

\- + - + - + -

The last real day of camp is hard for Emily, but she gets through it.

During training, she avoids Kelley. During breaks, she avoids Kelley. During bus rides and locker room time and even just lunchtime, Emily avoids Kelley.

Kelley doesn’t make it easy—it’s clear whatever’s happened between them has also created something of a rift between Kelley and Alex, leaving Kelley alone most of the time. It takes a while for it to set in that Tobin (and by extension Christen) is also not talking to Kelley, and while Lindsey tells her this presumably so she’ll feel like she’s supported, she mostly just feels guilty.

(_This is why you don’t date teammates_, her brain reminds her.)

(_We never dated_, she counters back.)

It doesn’t help that whenever Emily looks over at Kelley she finds Kelley’s eyes on her, expression always heavy with emotion in a way that makes Emily want to shout at her.

(She shouldn’t get to look at Emily like that.)

(Like Emily owes her anything.)

At some point they’re taking a break on the field and Rose decides to make a distasteful joke at their expense—something about Kelley checking out Emily’s ass while Emily wasn’t looking—and Emily feels sick to her stomach. She knew the jokes would come eventually, but it feels too soon.

(Later, when Rose accuses Emily of being too sensitive, Sam is the one that tells her to fuck off.)

Tobin finds her after practice, walking her away from the group to hold her in a deep embrace.

“I know. You told me so.” Emily says, face against Tobin’s shoulder.

“I didn’t want to be right.” She squeezes Emily a little tighter. “But, uh, from a person who has been where you are now: it’s okay to love big. It’s the way that you are and you should be proud of it. Don’t let this take that away from you. The right person will come along.”

She nods into Tobin’s shoulder, sniffling a little. Feeling bold, she asks, “You were into Kelley, too?”

Tobin actually laughs out loud at that, pulling back.

“Not Kelley.”

“Do I know this person?” Emily says, smiling. Tobin rolls her eyes.

“Does it matter? I have Christen now.”

Emily just smirks, “So I do know this person.” She leans in: “is it… Becky?”

Tobin shoves Emily a little. “This is not how you win friends.”

They head into the locker rooms. “Ash.” Emily guesses, watching Ash pull a shirt over her head.

“Weren’t you sad like, two minutes ago?” Tobin says.

“I’ll keep guessing till you tell me,” Emily says, grinning, and Tobin rolls her eyes, “I’m a psycho, you know it’s true.”

Tobin takes a seat on the bench, turning away from the team. “Let’s just say the trade that brought you to Portland was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

(Oh.)

(_Oh._)

They both turn to look across the locker room at Alex then, watching her as she pulls a wrapped sandwich out of her bag. She unwraps it, looking up to see both of them look at her, and stops: “Can I help you guys?”

Tobin waves her off, saying “Nah. We’re good,” at the same time as Emily blurts out, “Can I have a bite?”

Alex rolls her eyes, pulling apart a piece of her sandwich and handing it to Emily.

Emily thanks her, smiling sweetly, and then turns back to Tobin, whispering, “You want it? She touched it. With her hands.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“What does it say to you that Alex would willingly give me part of her sandwich? Guess I’m moving up in her heart.”

“I’d say she feels bad cuz her best friend fucked you over.”

Tobin watches Emily’s face fall. “Sorry, that was harsh.”

“No kidding.”

Tobin throws an arm around her, pulling her in again. “You know I love you kid. Now go shower. You stink.”

\- + - + - + -

Their flights are super early the next morning.

The entire team moves through the security line like an army of zombies that know how to unpack perfectly for TSA. Emily doesn’t even have the wherewithal to continuously obsess over Kelley’s whereabouts. Once through the security line she and Lindsey become singularly focused on acquiring caffeine, and it’s only after she’s seated at a café, halfway through her coffee, that she really registers that Kelley’s beside her at the table.

Now for the part she’s been dreading: saying goodbye.

Kelley doesn’t half-do a goodbye. Emily had learned that the hard way after her first camp—Kelley needs a gooey, loving, mushy goodbye. That, or she just doesn’t feel loved.

And saying goodbye before this had been hard in its own way—especially when Emily had thought there was something more between them—but saying goodbye now, well…

Emily was trying to figure out how to get out of it.

She’d left the table a few minutes ago in search of the bathroom only to find the women’s bathroom closed for janitorial services. She’d walked back out, encountering the “Family Restroom” and deciding she could probably make use of it if she was quick about it.

Just as she’s shutting the door, a foot wedges its way in.

“Wait.”

The door opens to Kelley O’Hara, standing there like she has any business following Emily Sonnett into a bathroom.

“I need to talk to you,” her words come out rushed and her voice uneven, like maybe she’s contemplating crying, “before you get on that plane I need to talk to you.”

“I need to pee.”

“Just… let me talk to you.” Kelley’s eyes are begging, and Emily doesn’t have it in her to deny her. She nods and Kelley shuts the door behind them, locking it.

“I fucked up,” is how Kelley chooses to start, and Emily stands arms crossed, staring at her, “I must have, because things are not okay. We’re not okay. And everyone is mad at me and Alex won’t talk to me and Tobin is _so pissed_, Son, and… I… you know what, I don’t even really care about the rest of it. Just. Just tell me what I have to do to make it right with you.”

Emily just stares at her.

She feels her face contorting, doing whatever it has to do to keep the tears from coming, and it doesn’t help that she can see the tears forming in Kelley’s eyes, too.

“Tell me what I have to do to make it all go back to normal. I’ll do it. Whatever you want.”

Emily swallows, clenching the fabric of her sweatshirt in her hand where her arms are crossed.

“Back to normal?” She says, voice cracking.

“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have started any of this. I shouldn’t have invited you over and asked you to—“

“—I don’t want things to go back to normal.” Emily says, mostly so she doesn’t have to listen to Kelley dismantle and tear apart the best memories of her life, calling them mistakes. They may have been mistakes, but Emily would make them over and over again.

She’s so preoccupied with the notion of Kelley regretting all of this, regretting them, she almost forgets the gravity of what she’s just said until she sees it reflected back at her in Kelley’s eyes.

“You don’t?”

Guess Emily’s trying honesty now: “I don’t.”

“So… we’re not okay. And you’re okay with that.” Kelley says, somehow now even more alarmed.

“That’s not what I meant.” Emily says, and she can tell where this is going—her heart is pounding her chest, warning her of the oncoming collision. Warning her that if she continues down this path she’s likely to reveal everything she’s been feeling.

(She ignores it.)

“What did you mean, then?” Kelley asks, and Emily steps forward, looking down at her feet. Tears fall from her face to the floor, soaking into her knit shoes. Kelley doesn’t pressure her, just sits and waits.

(_It takes Emily a while, but eventually…_)

“I’m in love with you.”

She looks up at Kelley, watching her changing expression, unable to read her reaction.

“I think maybe I’ve always been in love with you. But, uh, well… the last few months were maybe the best months of my entire life, so…” she trails off, watching Kelley look down at the floor.

“That night, after the game when Alex found us… I was going to tell you. I had prepped a whole speech in my head and everything.” She barrels through the confession, feeling emboldened by the honesty, “That’s why I was so upset. It’s because I’m in love with you.”

Emily stops there, hoping this is one of those moments where silence pressures the other person to talk, but seconds pass with Kelley looking distressed and by the time Kelley meets her eyes again there’s another emotion in them entirely—one that fills Emily with dread.

“You knew.”

Kelley wipes the tears angrily from her face, biting her lip. But she isn’t saying anything to the contrary and Emily’s mind is racing.

“You knew I loved you,” Emily shoves a hand over her eyes, wincing, “Everything everyone’s been saying about you taking advantage of me… was true.”

“Sonnett.”

“You knew you could get me to kiss you. To fuck you.” Emily says, pacing.

“S_onnett_.” Kelley’s voice cracks with tears.

“You knew that I was falling in deeper and deeper and you just… let me. All while you didn’t feel anything.”

“_Emily_.” Kelley all-but-shouts, “That’s not true.”

“Then what?” Kelley’s sobbing at this point, but Emily’s livid, “What’s the truth?”

Kelley just stares at her, glassy-eyed, unable to answer.

“You said your priority was me. But… I don’t think that’s true. I think your priority was you. And I’m just collateral damage.”

Emily walks to the door, “I’m going to go use the men’s bathroom.” She unlocks the door.

“Wait.” She feels a hand catch her wrist, holding her there.

“What you said—none of that is true,” She’s struggling to speak through tears, “I want—“

She cuts herself off, biting her lip again, and Emily pulls her wrist from Kelley’s grasp.

“I don’t think you know what you want,” Emily tells her, tone harsh. “But you've made it pretty clear it’s not me.”


	5. don't call me kid, don't call me baby (look at this godforsaken mess that you made me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my defense i have none
> 
> (this chapter brought to you by taylor swift's illicit affairs, a true lyrical masterpiece) 
> 
> don't @me for updating/polishing chapters 1-4 like a nerd, i can't control how i am

The nights are the hardest.

Back before they were caught, back before the fight and the humiliation and heartache that followed, Emily used to fall asleep by picturing Kelley in her arms. Unable to get to sleep alone, Emily would hug her pillow tightly, close her eyes, and conjure up memories of Kelley: the dip in the bed, the way she smelled, the soft ins and outs of her breathing.

And it was comforting. It feels a little silly now, to admit that, but it was. It got her through the tough moments, through the moments where she felt like she might always be alone.

But now here she was again.

It’d been three long nights since she last saw Kelley. Three long nights of staring up at the ceiling and willing sleep to come. Three long nights of sobbing angrily when it wouldn’t.

Kelley kept calling. She’d called at least four times each day, and several times every night. And during the day her calls were easy enough to ignore—neither Tobin nor Lindsey had left Emily alone long enough for the thought of answering to set in—but at night, well…

At night the phone just rang. And Emily just stared at it.

She’d waited till after midnight to start calling this time, as though she knew that was when Emily was alone, in bed, thinking about her. Emily had rolled over and tried to think of anything else, but the buzzing coming from her nightstand was a special type of infuriating. She’d considered putting it on Do Not Disturb, but somehow, not knowing if Kelley was trying to contact her felt even worse.

She could imagine Kelley on the other end of the phone, sitting on her bed in her Utah apartment, hoping Emily would just pick up.

And what would Emily even say if she did?

Her brain supplies _Fuck off_ in a voice that sounds very much like Lindsey’s, and Emily finds herself smiling despite the heaviness in her heart. But that smile subsides quickly, clearing way for a darker emotion: there’s a part of her that does want to yell and kick and scream. She wants to tell Kelley that none of this had to go down this way: Kelley could’ve just loved her back.

And then there’s an entirely separate part of her that _craves _Kelley, misses her more than she’s missed anything in her life. And sure, maybe Kelley was using her, but maybe Emily doesn’t care anymore.

It was better than this.

In a fit of insomnia-induced rage, Emily turns over violently in bed, dragging the covers with her. She checks her phone and finds it lit up with a call from Kelley, just as she suspected. Her hands shake as she holds it, staring down at it with teary eyes. The phone vibrates in her hands for a few seconds before sending Kelley to voicemail.

Emily puts the phone down, sitting up in the darkness. She sighs loudly, swallowing tears, and just as she’s about to lay back down, her phone lights up again. It buzzes on her nightstand, soft but insistent, and Emily can’t take it anymore.

She picks it up and answers.

“Hello?” She hears Kelley say, and her mind goes blank. The decision to pick up this call had skipped every logical section of her brain, and now she was left staring down at the phone, speechless, wondering what the hell she had been thinking.

“Em?” She hears Kelley shift around on the other end of the phone, “Em, I know you’re there.”

It feels like she’s about to say something more—something Emily knows she doesn’t want to hear—so Emily jumps in before she can, “Please…”

She swallows, and her voice cracks: “Please stop calling. I… I can’t do this anymore. I really can’t.”

She hears Kelley sigh, “Oh, baby…”

Emily winces at the word, and the way her stomach flips with joy feels like instant betrayal. Her words come out forcefully: “Don’t. Don’t call me that.”

She shuts her eyes, humiliated at how small she feels. This is pathetic.

“Just… please. Leave me alone.”

“You need to give me a chance to explain—“ Kelley starts, and Emily feels rage flow sudden and hot in her bloodstream.

“No, I don’t.”

Her words land like a blow. Emily, shocked into silence by her own words, sits up in bed. She can picture Kelley with startling clarity—the room she’s in, what she’s probably wearing, how she’s probably sitting—and tries to shove the casual domesticity of those thoughts out of her mind. She hates that she can still see it all in her mind’s eye.

“I guess you don’t.” Kelley sounds uncharacteristically defeated, and Emily almost wants to take it back.

“I just…” She trails off, and Emily holds her breath, waiting for Kelley’s next words, “I care about you.”

Emily wipes tears, smiling a little at the absurdity of it all. Months ago those words would’ve been everything to her. Now they’re not enough.

(In reality, they would’ve never been enough.)

“That’s not enough.” She says, and she sounds so much like a petulant child that fresh tears start their way down her cheeks.

“I…”

“Please stop calling.” Emily says again, and hangs up before she can think about it.

She places the phone face down on her nightstand and turns over in her bed, eyes taking in the soft lights of the city out her window. She stares until her vision blurs from the tears.

\- + - + - + -

Everyone in her life knows.

In some ways, that’s comforting—she hasn’t had to explain what happened, and has gotten to live somewhat privately with her own humiliation.

Still, she misses her friends.

It’s not that she’s not seeing them—Tobin is constantly hovering, and Lindsey has invited herself over almost every night—it’s that they’re handling her with kid gloves.

“Side of fries?”

And she can’t stand it.

“Of course.” Emily says, letting her tone convey her mild annoyance. This is shouldn’t be a question. They order from this place all the time.

Lindsey, for her part, says nothing. She puts the order in and turns on a Netflix comedy special, taking a seat on her usual half of Emily’s couch.

“You don’t have to do this.” Emily tells her, “I can occupy my own time. I don’t need you to check on me and feed me.”

“I know.” Is all Lindsey says. She doesn’t even look up from the TV screen.

“Then why are you here?” Emily asks. Lindsey huffs, pausing the show.

“Because I care about you, you dork,” She starts, “and because for as much as you can take care of yourself, well… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before.”

The look Lindsey’s giving her makes her feel like something fragile, and the whole idea of needing to be cared for is unpleasant, so Emily frowns. She leans forward in her seat, taking a deep breath. She wonders when, if ever, things will go back to normal.

“You want to talk about it?” Lindsey suggests. Emily can see the way her face shifts, expression hopeful. Emily hasn’t said two words about Kelley since she landed in Portland.

“I talked to her yesterday.”

“You _what_?” Lindsey says, and Emily drops her head into her hands.

“She kept calling. She had called like, 20 times, and I couldn’t sleep and… I just picked up. I didn’t even think about it.”

“What’d she say?”

“She told me she cared about me. I told her that wasn’t enough.” Emily says. Lindsey waits for her to expand, but she doesn’t.

“That’s good, right?” Lindsey says, and Emily is honestly not sure, so she shrugs. They sit with that for a second before Lindsey asks, “Was that it?”

Emily nods, not trusting her words.

“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. That’s the exact opposite of what she expected Lindsey to say.

“Oh, you thought you could just go on like this, not talking to one of our closest friends and teammates for the rest of eternity?” Lindsey smirks a little, shaking her head, “Not what you signed up for, unfortunately.”

“I guess this is why people don’t sleep with teammates.” Emily says, tone laced with bitterness. In a different moment she might’ve followed that up with a joke, but she can’t seem to find it within her. She can’t joke and mean it right now.

Lindsey moves to brush some hair out of Emily’s face, and that’s when Emily loses it. She feels the tears coming, and jerks her face away, burying it in her hands to hide her shame.

“I’m not ready.” Emily’s voice cracks. She feels small and insignificant and downright pathetic. Lindsey scoots over on the couch, wrapping Emily in a loose hug.

“I know.”

“I didn’t know it would hurt this bad.” She’s crying now, dammit.

“I know.” Lindsey pulls her closer, and Emily can feel Lindsey’s breath against her hair, “you don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”

They stay like that—curled together on Emily’s couch, Emily crying—for nearly ten minutes before Lindsey speaks again, “you know, one day it won’t hurt as bad.”

Emily laughs bitterly.

“I mean it,” Lindsey’s tone drops into something more serious, and for once Emily listens, “you’re just gonna have to trust me. Time heals everything.”

\- + - + - + -

The next time she sees Kelley is over a month later.

It’s not planned.

(Well, at least not on her end.)

There are 15 minutes and counting until their game against the Pride. Most of the team has moved back into the locker room to change post-warm-up, and everything is remarkably normal until Caitlin Foord enters from the pitch and announces to the room that for some reason Kelley O’Hara is in the stands.

_For some reason_, as though every set of eyes in the room didn’t turn to gauge Emily’s reaction to the news. As though Lindsey hadn’t immediately come to her side, shielding her from the world.

“You okay?” Lindsey asks, and Emily keeps her eyes trained on the contents of her locker. She pulls on her game clothes in silence, trying her best to look hardened and unaffected by the news.

“Em.”

“I’m fine.”

Lindsey frowns, and Emily knows that’s not enough for her, so she adds, “I’m gonna have to talk to her eventually, right?”

Emily takes her things and goes, leaving Lindsey to ponder that thought on her own. She heads into a bathroom stall, shutting the door and taking a deep breath.

_Is _she okay?

She breathes in and out, trying to keep from picturing Kelley in the stands, trying to stifle the hope that blossomed in her heart at the news.

It’s over. It’s more than over—they haven’t spoken in over a month, and Emily was doing better. She really was. So why does it feel like she’s suffocating now?

Emily repeats things she’s worked through with her therapist, stringing them together like a mantra: _you deserve more than this. You owe her nothing._

“Em?” It’s Lindsey, Emily can see her cleats through the stall door, “You ready?”

Emily follows Lindsey out of the bathroom and onto the pitch, willing her mind to focus on the game ahead.

_You deserve more than this. You owe her nothing. _

\- + - + - + -

The game doesn’t go well, because of course it doesn’t.

And how could it? Kelley O’Hara is watching from the sideline with popcorn like she didn’t fly three hours to be here on her free day. Like she isn’t watching Emily’s every move, expression unreadable.

Knowing she’s less than 50 feet away and watching, Emily can’t focus. Suddenly everything she’s doing is wrong—should she be standing here? Should she have been more aggressive on that run? Her touch has been off in places and it’s affecting Portland’s entire backline. She makes a fairly stupid mistake and curses herself out under her breath, because this is ridiculous—it’s not like Kelley hasn’t seen her play hundreds of times.

(It’s not like if she plays well, Kelley’s suddenly gonna fall in love with her.)

Mark pulls her out at halftime and honestly, it’s for the best. Emily’s not sure she ever had her head in the game, and isn’t sure the team would’ve survived her being off her game for two entire halves. They haven’t conceded any goals yet, and the game flows much better once Elizabeth Ball takes her place.

She takes a seat beside Tobin on the bench, eyes trained on the game so they don’t drift up to the stands and see Kelley seated clear across from them. Tobin’s ankle is elevated with ice, and Emily can already see a bruise on her shin from the impact.

“You okay?” She asks, mostly as a courtesy.

“Yeah. Just a knock. Nothing serious.” Tobin says, readjusting the ice. Emily watches as Tobin’s gaze shifts up toward the stands. Kelley must be looking at them, because Tobin offers her a tight-lipped smile before turning back to Emily.

“You okay?”

Emily pauses, because Tobin’s someone she could actually talk to, if she wanted. She sighs, deciding to accept her fate, “I don’t know. But I’ll have to be.”

\- + - + - + -

She knows Kelley is waiting.

According to her teammates, Kelley’s been waiting outside the locker room for upwards of fifteen minutes. Emily’s not sure what to do with this information. After she’s done changing, she settles for tying her street shoes and scrolling through twitter, dawdling.

“Son, come on.” Caitlin starts, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet, “Let’s go get your girl.”

Emily takes the offered hand, more confused than anything else. As she stands, she looks around, noticing the locker room is a lot more full than it normally is by this time. Are these people here for her?

“Cait.” Lindsey says, stepping forward. “Let her be.”

“She’s been keeping the girl waiting on purpose.” Cait says, smirking. “Come on Son, time to woman up.”

Emily takes in the group, heart rate suddenly skyrocketing. She looks around at the room, taking them all in. It was always public drama, right? It only makes sense that they’d expect the conclusion to be something they could witness. Emily blinks, unsure how to handle this. Luckily, she doesn’t have to.

“Yeah, okay. Everyone can fuck off. Sonnett will go out and see Kelley if and when she wants to and not before.” Lindsey says this in her no-nonsense captain voice, and the group accepts it with an eyeroll. “Everyone get out.”

As most of the team begins packing up and filing out, Lindsey drags Emily over to the corner by her elbow, leaning in conspiratorially.

“So, what’s the plan?” Lindsey says, “Because I can think of at least three ways to sneak you out of here without you having to talk to her.”

“What happened to ‘you have to talk to her?’”

Lindsey gives her a grin, “Oh, did you want to? Let me just go get her, hold on.”

“Get who?”

They both turn to see Kelley O’Hara standing in the locker room. She’s wearing a leather jacket, jeans, and make up—like she put effort into her appearance—and smiling like she’s in on the joke. Emily’s heart beats _hard_ when she sees her, and suddenly she’s overcome with an urge to run. Lindsey’s hand on her elbow is the only thing holding her in place.

And maybe Kelley can tell, because she takes a hesitant step forward, as though she’s worried that Emily will take off. She crosses her arms and the first thing she says to Emily in months is, “You played like shit.”

Lindsey laughs, but it’s not her giddy laugh, it’s her “I might punch you out” laugh, one laced with bitterness that seems to communicate to Kelley that she should be on her best behavior.

“I mean, uh, are you okay?” Kelley looks to Lindsey, gauging her reaction. Emily twists her way out of Lindsey’s grasp, picking up her phone and bag.

“I’m fine.” Emily says, gaze still fixed on her bag.

“Can we talk?” Kelley says, looking to Emily and then back to Lindsey, “Alone?”

Lindsey meets Emily’s eyes, leaving the choice up to her. She can say anything she wants. She doesn’t have to do this.

_You don’t owe her anything_.

But Emily’s ready to stop imagining this conversation. She’s ready to stop letting her mind fill in the blanks when it comes to Kelley. She wants to know more than she cares about how much it could hurt.

It already hurts. And it’ll keep hurting for as long as she draws this out.

“Sure.”

\- + - + - + -

Rather than head out the locker room door to prying eyes, Emily heads back out onto the pitch. Kelley follows her dutifully, silent. Like she knows that she’s being given the chance of a lifetime and she’s thinking through how to not screw it up.

Providence Park’s floodlights are still on, and though the stadium has emptied out, Emily can still see some of the janitors cleaning out the stands. She makes her way to the center of the field, knowing that there isn’t a soul that would force her leave before she wanted to, and knowing that there’s probably no safer place in the world for a conversation like this. Not for her.

When they get to the circle, Emily drops her things. She turns away from Kelley, looking up at the scoreboard and reading the 1-0 declaring Portland the winners of the match.

“You came.”

“I did.” Kelley breathes it out like a whisper, and Emily, curious, turns to look at her. Their eyes meet. Emily feels a shiver of something make its way down her spine—if even just looking at Kelley triggers this reaction, she’s better off keeping her eyes on her feet.

Kelley rubs at her neck, “Camp is soon. Can’t avoid it forever.”

“Sounds like you were looking forward to this as much as I was.” Emily says, voice low and laced with sarcasm, like she doesn’t expect Kelley to hear it.

And Emily can’t help but joke, would probably joke at her own funeral, but Kelley sounds dead serious when she replies, “It’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about for weeks.”

Emily’s face falls. She can’t tell if that’s a good thing. She puts her hands in her pockets, staring down at her shoes.

A peek up at Kelley reveals what looks like the beginnings of tears in her eyes, and the sight of it shocks Emily into staring. Her mouth drops open, but any question she might ask just freezes there on her tongue. She doesn’t know what to say.

Kelley, for her part, just laughs a little and wipes at her eyes, “I’m sorry, there just really isn’t a way to say this without coming across like an asshole.”

Emily tries to smile back, but the sinking feeling in her gut threatens to swallow her whole. The word “asshole” conjures up visions of many different ways this conversation could go, and it takes everything in Emily to push those thoughts away. She watches expectantly as Kelley gathers herself.

“I, uh, got the impression you might have a thing for me a while ago.” She laughs nervously, answering Emily’s follow up question before she can ask it: “It was that one pool party, you remember? You were drunk off your ass and dying to do a body shot off of me—“

“How could I forget?” Emily replies dryly. She doesn’t need a recap. Kelley reins herself in, as though just remembering who she’s talking to. The whole thing is equally sobering for Emily, who has seemingly just remembered that she’s talking to a person that’s about to hurt her. She hardens herself accordingly.

“Anyway, uh… after that. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like. You know, to be with you. We flirted plenty, and… well, you... you’re young. Unattached. Flirty, fun, cool. I just wanted to prove I could be that too, I guess.” Kelley cuts herself off, “That doesn’t excuse it. But… that first time, I mean, I had to psych myself up for an hour before I invited you over. I was so worried you weren’t gonna go for it.”

She pauses, eyes far away for a second, “And then when you did… everything changed.”

“Changed how?” Emily asks, arms crossed.

“You know how.” Kelley insists, and Emily just stares at her. “Being with you all the time. Thinking about you all the time. It was so much more than I ever expected. And it was amazing.”

Kelley waits patiently for a reaction, eyes scanning Emily’s, looking for something. Emily does her best to remain cool and collected. She stands, arms crossed, and asks the most pointed question she can think to: “When did you know I was in too deep?”

“In too deep?” Kelley says, like she disagrees with the phrasing, “Em, we were both—“

“When did you know you were taking advantage of me?” Emily presses. She wishes Kelley would just rip off the bandaid. This is torture.

This time Kelley does actually cry. She angrily wipes tears from her eyes, biting her lip. “I… It was more complicated than tha—“

“More complicated how?”

“I was lying. To myself.” Kelley’s mascara’s running and it Emily finds herself marveling at the way it brings out the green in Kelley’s eyes, “I never told you any lies I didn’t believe myself.”

Kelley swallows, taking a breath. The way Kelley’s looking at her now feels electric, like there’s a current running between them. Emily feels like she knows where this is going. Her gut pools with something like hope.

“We were amazing together. You know it and I know it. And no part of that relationship was platonic. There were feelings on both sides. Feelings I was too scared to do anything about.”

“Feelings?” She says, and her voice cracks with tears of her own.

“Of course there were, dude. What am I, a Vulcan?” They both laugh, and it cuts through the tension. A moment passes, and Emily waits patiently for a declaration she knows is coming.

But then Kelley just smiles awkwardly, like she doesn’t know what more to say. Emily lets the silence hang between them, hoping for more, but then Kelley jumps in, changing course.

“So, uh, that’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. I took advantage of you and I’m sorry. I was a dick and I handled all of this poorly and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but…”

A month and a half ago Emily declared she was in love with Kelley. And now Kelley’s here declaring her unspecific “feelings,” and not even bothering to expand on what she means by that.

_You deserve more than this_.

“You’re forgiven.” Emily says. Surprisingly, she means it. She’s not mad at Kelley anymore. Just… sad at her. She can’t be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t know what they want.

“Wow. Okay, thank you,” Kelley says, and her shock seems genuine. She opens her mouth to say something else—maybe to ask something—but before she can, Emily gives her a smile and reaches out a hand, “Friends?”

She can tell that’s not what Kelley was expecting her to say, but Kelley plays it off with grace, shaking her hand: “Friends.”

Their hands stay linked longer than is strictly necessary, and there’s an element to it that feels almost flirtatious, almost like crossing a line—until Emily cuts it off.

“I should go.” She says, letting go of Kelley’s hand.

“Okay.” Kelley looks thrown, like she was expecting Emily to stick around for longer. “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll, uh, see you?”

Emily smiles curtly, grabbing her bag off the ground. “Of course. See you in a week. Thanks for coming out.”

She walks off, leaving Kelley on the field.

\- + - + - + -

**Alex Morgan**: Meet me at coffee house northwest in two hours or you’re off the team.

Emily’s not even surprised at this point.

(And Alex usually threatens worse, to be honest.)

She shows up at the café at the requested time, partially because she’s a decent human and partially because she doesn’t like to test the limits of Alex’s powers as captain—that woman was capable of anything. She knows Alex wants to talk about Kelley and has already resigned herself to the conversation.

She suspects what’s about to ensue will be highly inappropriate, and prepares appropriately by ordering the biggest cup of coffee they offer.

“Good morning.” Alex says sweetly when Emily pulls out the chair across from her, taking a seat.

“Mornin’”

“Did you recover from your shit game?”

“Why, did you want tips on how to recover from losing to a person who had a shit game?”

“Shut up.” Alex says with an eyeroll. She takes a sip of her coffee. “Let’s cut to the chase.”

“Be my guest.”

“Wormy. I heard you talked last night.”

She was expecting it, but Emily’s heart still jumps at the mention of Kelley. She takes a sip, hoping to mask her feelings. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“You guys made it my business when I walked in on you,” Alex says, shrugging, like that makes any logical sense at all.

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Anyway,” Alex draws it out, ignoring Emily, “In my opinion this is needlessly complicated. It’d be really great if you could get over whatever it is your hang up is. Coming here was really hard for her. And I know she left your conversation less than satisfied.

“You’re talking to the wrong person.” Emily’s tone is harsh, and Alex, unused to that from her, raises an eyebrow in response. She’s got a smile on her face, like she’s challenging Emily to say more, and Emily can’t stand it.

“You know what, I don’t need to be here.” Emily stands, pushing in her chair.

Alex groans, “Come on, Sonny.” She reaches out, placing her hand over Emily’s on the back of the chair. “Look, just, hear me out: Kell’s… not so good at feelings. It’s the vulnerability of it all. I don’t know what she said, but… I promise you, she cares about you.”

Emily drags her hand away, voice again laced with heavy emotion, “I told her I loved her.”

Alex’s expression changes entirely, thrown by that information. She stares back at Emily like she’s trying to put the pieces together.

And Emily, now fed up, has to strain to keep her voice at a level where it won’t draw attention to them. “I’m not the one making this complicated.” She spits out, dead serious. She snatches her keys off the table, leaving the café without sparing Alex another glance.

\- + - + - + -

A week later, Emily arrives in Georgia to little fanfare. Her mother picks her up from the airport with a deep hug and a smile, spending the majority of the drive asking Emily’s opinion on several different recipes she’s considering trying out for Thanksgiving, which is only two weeks away.

The USWNT have a camp just outside Atlanta starting Sunday, and while ordinarily Emily would just wait till then to fly in like everyone else, she doesn’t want to pass up family time. Two days of home cooking and sleeping in her childhood bed felt like just what the doctor ordered after the month and a half of heartbreak she’d endured.

The first night she and her family catch up, cooking something of a feast in celebration. She and her sister stay up most of the night talking, which feels like exactly the dose of outside perspective Emily had been missing recently. Still, she doesn’t sleep soundly, tossing and turning and having conversations with Kelley over and over again in her mind.

So much of her own personal recovery had centered around developing the self-respect to decide that she deserved more than what Kelley—who seemed unwilling to commit—had to offer. And during the day, it was easy enough to repeat the mantra _you deserve better_ and to mean it. But at night sometimes she wondered whether she, as an individual, wasn’t meant to find that type of happiness. She wondered whether with Kelley was the best she could get. She wondered if that was in fact what she deserved.

These thoughts kept her up through the early morning hours, robbing her of much needed sleep. She does eventually crash, falling into a short, dreamless sleep. When she wakes up late the next morning, she tells her mother she slept well and leaves it at that.

After breakfast Emily laces up her shoes, deciding to take a run around the neighborhood and sweat out all her self-deprecating thoughts. She runs for almost an hour and a half, pounding the pavement in the cool Georgia fall and stopping to enjoy the gentle breeze on a swing set at a local park.

As she runs back up the street toward her house, she spots an unfamiliar car in front of it. She squints, making out the shape of Kelley’s car and spotting Kelley herself on the doorstep, chatting with her mother and holding a bouquet of flowers.

Emily’s mom spots Emily before Kelley does, pointing her out. As Emily gets closer she can just barely make out the look on Kelley’s face—she looks bemused, a bit flushed, and more than relieved to see her. Emily’s mom looks positively overjoyed, and Emily is already wincing internally at the thought of the conversation to come.

Emily takes long strides up the lawn, rushing to intervene. She meets Kelley’s eyes, no longer scared to face her.

“What are you doing here?” It’s not inviting. It’s in fact quite harsh for a person that insisted she wanted to stay friends.

“Kelley came by to talk to you about something—“ her mother starts, and Emily cuts her off with a glare, “Let her talk.”

Kelley doesn’t look at all surprised that this is Emily’s reaction, and seems to formulate her words accordingly. Emily notes how nervous she looks, and watches her fidget with the flowers before holding them out lamely as a peace offering.

“These are for you. I was hoping we could talk.”

It’s a bouquet of red roses. Emily takes them without a glance, holding them down at her side like a weapon. Her mother eases the flowers of out her hands, breaking up the stare down happening between them.

“I’m gonna take these inside,” is all she says, reaching out a hand to rub Emily’s back lightly before heading into the house and shutting the door.

Emily looks out at the surrounding houses and shakes her head, already lost in thought. This has already been public enough.

“Follow me.” She says, turning around and leading Kelley around the house and into the backyard. Kelley follows at a small distance, and when they make it into the yard, Emily leads her down and away from the house to the paved area near the pool.

“Are you here to tell me you’re sorry again?” Emily can already hear the threat of tears in her own voice. She swallows, willing herself to stay composed.

“No.” Kelley says simply. “I’m here to tell you I love you.”

Emily’s blood runs hot with surprise. She can feel its heat all over her body, can feel the way something pleasurable pools in her gut. Her brain hiccups, and for a while all she can do is blink and stare.

“What?” It comes out shaky and stifled, and carries the full weight of her disbelief.

“I love you,” Kelley says again, like it’s something they’ve been saying to each other for years. “I should’ve told you that night.”

“At the airport?”

“No—the first night I thought it. The night you stayed over after the game where I hurt my rib, I think. You went down on me and then made me dinner.” Kelley chuckles just a little, like the memory’s a favorite, “I was gonna say it. Or wanted to… you know. When you were holding me after.”

Kelley takes a step forward into Emily space, reaching out to take Emily’s hand in hers. They both look down as Kelley entwines their fingers, and Emily’s brain supplies the memory of their hands meeting for the very first time, on her thigh in that hotel room months ago.

Emily stares at their hands until her vision is blurry from the tears, and when she chances a glance back up at Kelley, who watches her with heavy, caring eyes.

“It’s so dumb because… when I look back, I think I was terrified because I didn’t want to love you and lose you. And then when it was clear I was going to lose you for not loving you, well… it was so much worse.”

Kelley steps forward again, bringing a hand up to Emily’s face. She brushes at the tears there. “It’s so much easier to pretend things don’t matter. For a long time I thought that was what we had in common, but I was wrong: you’re so much braver than I am.”

Emily laughs, swallowing tears. She must have snot all over her face by now, but Kelley’s still looking at her like she’s the only person she’s ever cared about. Like the key to it all is in her eyes.

“And I’m in love with you.” Kelley says again.

Emily wipes the snot on her sleeve. Unable to look at Kelley any longer, she looks down her body at her feet, overwhelmed. Kelley takes her other hand, stepping even further into her space.

“Say something.” Kelley says, her breath hot on Emily’s lips.

“Did Alex put you up to this?” Emily squeaks out, and Kelley laughs uproariously.

“This is none of Alex’s business.” Kelley insists, leaning in.

“That’s what I said, but she—“

“Emily?” Kelley whispers, cutting her off.

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?” Kelley’s eyes flick up from her lips and for the first time in months, Emily smiles brightly.

“I don’t know, can you?”

Kelley shoves her playfully, causing Emily to stumble backwards. She catches Emily by her elbows, pulling her in just as Emily shoves her way forward, their lips meeting in an easy, familiar kiss.

The kiss remains unsteady, their balance all over the place, and Emily only has time to pull back and laugh before they both accidentally stumble backwards into the pool. A mess of limbs and soaked clothing, Kelley and Emily still manage to find each other beneath the surface. Wet, giddy, and giggling, they resurface to laughter and kisses, wrapped in each other’s arms.

\- + - + - + -

They resolve to keep it to themselves. At least for a few days.

It’s Emily that suggests it—she wants to give them both time to process and figure out what this new relationship’s going to look like without USWNT intervention. She can see the way Kelley masks her disappointment, agreeing quickly. Anything for Emily. That seems like the new normal, now.

They spend most of Saturday wrapped up in each other (in a PG way!) on her parents’ couch, watching movies and catching up after a month apart. On Sunday morning they report bright and early for camp, stashing their things in their hotel rooms and heading down to the field for practice.

Emily embraces the easy silence of the locker room, greeting friends and dressing herself for training. She watches across the way as Kelley discusses something with Allie, and tries not to smile at the way Kelley brightens when she sees her.

As she leans down to lace up her shoes, she notices how light she feels. The heaviness she’s been carrying for months now—both before and after she told Kelley how she felt—is gone now, replaced by a lightness that intensifies every time she thinks about Kelley.

_This is what she deserves._

She knows then that keeping anything a secret is useless—anyone who knows her well would see the change in her immediately. It’s just not worth it.

Emily finishes lacing up her shoes, following the group out onto the field. She spots Kelley just ahead of her, making fun of Lindsey, and before she can stop herself she speeds up, brushing her hand against Kelley’s.

She can see the confusion play out on Kelley’s face, and gives her an insistent smile in response, intertwining their fingers. Kelley looks surprised but elated and completely thrown, and before she can say anything Emily leans in, dropping a soft kiss on her cheek beside her mouth.

Emily hears more than a few groans from the group, but when she pulls back most everyone is smiling. None more than Kelley, who blushes like that was her first kiss. Emily feels her own face heat up at the attention.

The group disperses quickly, and Emily’s reminded that not only is this old news—it’s also not the center of anyone else’s universe. And thank God for that.

She looks down at their hands and then up at Kelley, lips folding into a smirk.

“Good luck out there.” Emily says, because she feels like she should say something. Kelley smiles, undoing their hands to pull a penny over her shirt.

(They’re on opposing teams again, because of course they are.)

“You’re the one who’s gonna need luck, babe.” Kelley responds with a confident smile. Emily smiles back, winking.

“God, spare us all the flirting and get your asses on the field,” Alex calls out, eye roll apparent in her tone. “Don’t get me wrong: love this for you, hate this for me.”

And as Emily rushes out onto the field, her smile brightens.

She has a girlfriend. One who loves her. And she’s about to kick her ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole chapter was completed due to peer pressure so if you ever want to see the as-of-right-now-unfinished epilogue, you know what to do


End file.
